Addresses Made at the Meeting 
Held in Memory of 

William Pepper, M.D., LLD., 

IN THE CHAPEL OF THE 



University of Pennsylvania, 

NOVEMBER 29, 1898, 

TOGETHER WITH 



Mexico's Tribute to the Memory of 
William Pepper. 




TRANZ MEI MEN, PHOTO, 




Addresses 



MADE AT THE 



MEETING HELD IN MEMORY 



OF 



William Pepper, M.D., LL.D., 



HELD IN 



THE CHAPEL 



OF THE 



University of Pennsylvania, 



NOVEMBER 29, 1898. 



REPRINTED FROM 

American Philosophical Society Memorial Volume. 
1899. 



■-xVi 



r^- 






70054 



WILLIAM PEPPER, M.D., LLD., 

Born, August 21, 1843. 
Died, July 29, 1898. 



At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the University of 
Pennsylvania, held October 4, 1898, Mr. Samuel Dickson offered 
the following resolution : 

*^ Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed to make pro- 
vision for a memorial meeting in reference to the death of Dr. 
William Pepper, with authority to invite the cooperation of other 
institutions and societies, with which he was connected." 

The Provost appointed as this committee Mr. Samuel Dickson, 
Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, Dr. Horace Howard Furness, Mr. Joseph S. 
Harris, and Mr. Joseph G. Rosengarten. 

Similar committees were appointed as follows : 

From the American Philosophical Society : Dr. Persifor Frazer, 
Hon. George F. Edmunds, Dr. J. M. Da Costa, Gen. I. J. Wistar, 
and Dr. James Tyson. 

From the Franklin Institute : Dr. Coleman Sellers, Dr. Isaac 
Norris, and Mr. George Vaux, Jr. 

From the Academy of National Sciences : Rev. Dr. Henry Mc- 
Cook, Dr. Henry C. Chapman, and Mr. Joseph Willcox. 

A joint meeting of the committees was called at the University 
Club, to which were also invited Hon. Charles F. Warwick, Dr. 
William P. Wilson, Mr. Daniel Baugh, Mr. Hampton L. Carson, 
Hon. Frederick Fraley, and Mr. John Thomson ; Mr. Dickson 
presiding. 

It was decided to hold the services in the Chapel of the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania, on the evening of November 29, 1898, and 
to invite His Excellency Governor Hastings to preside as ex-officio 
President of the Board of Trustees of the University. The other 
speakers selected were Dr. Mitchell on behalf of the Board of 



Trustees of the University ; Dr. Tyson on behalf of the Medical 
Faculty ; General I. J. Wistar on behalf of the Wistar Institute ; 
Mr. Daniel Baugh on behalf of the Archeological and Paleontologi- 
cal Museum j Mr. Carson on behalf of the General Alumni Society ; 
Dr. Wilson on behalf of the Philadelphia Commercial Museums ; 
Mr. Thomson on behalf of the Free Library ; and Mayor Warwick 
on behalf of the City of Philadelphia. 

Mr. Fraley, on account of his advanced age (ninety-four years), 
excused himself from personally attending, but prepared a discourse 
which was read by Mr. Dickson. 

The night of the meeting was very inclement, yet in spite of 
this fact a large audience of representative men and women listened 
to the addresses with earnest attention. 

It was very generally remarked that the best eulogium on this 
ablest and most public-spirited of Philadelphians was found, not in 
any one address, but in the fact that, without previous knowledge 
by any speaker of what the others would say, the addresses together 
formed a mosaic in which not only Dr. Pepper's immense activity 
was clearly traced, but his individuality was unmistakable. No 
other man could have accomplished so much in each of these 
many fields of labor and thought, although the nine addresses did 
not exhaust all the directions of his effort in behalf of, and his use- 
fulness to, mankind. 

The writer, his schoolmate and college classmate, can add no 
ornament to the chaplet of these addresses, but he can attest the 
solemnity and dignity of the sorrowful occasion of their presenta- 
tion, and the sincere interest with which they were received. 

Persifor Frazer. 



Address by the Chairman, His Excellency, Governor 
Daniel H. Hastings. 

" I do not think it is too mncli to say that the people of 
Philadelphia, of the Commonwealth, of the whole country 
and of other countries who were honored by his acquaintance 
or benefited by his achievements would, if it were possible, 
gladly gather here to-day to unite with those who shared 
more directly in those labors which made his name familiar 
in every land and added increasing fame to this University 
to give to history and to the judgment of mankind suitable 
acknowledgment and permanent record of their estimate and 
appreciation of the life work of William Pepper. 

" The profession to which he gave the best energies of his 
rare genius has everywhere mourned his loss with the same 
intense fervor that it welcomed and admired his unabating 
and conquering efforts for the advancement of medical science. 
The congress of university and college life welcomed him to 
the headship of the University of Pennsylvania, who^e his- 
tory, growth and development is a part of the educational life 
of the State and noted his systematic, incessant and brilliant 
efforts which have so largely added to its usefulness and dis- 
tinction. 

" Others will tell you in eloquent and tender phrase the story 
of his student life and official work within these walls ; of his 
honored father's relations to one of its departments ; of his 
private professional career and of his varied consulting prac- 
tice throughout the land and in other countries ; of his inces- 
sant literary work which brought him fame and honor at 
home and abroad ; of his active cooperation with those 
broad-minded men who founded another admirable institu- 
tion, the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial 
Arts ; of his work in building up the Free Library of Phila- 
delphia ; and of his potential relations to the conception, 
organization and development of the Philadelphia Commer- 
cial Museums — an institution destined, as I believe, to become 
national in its usefulness and of such commercial value to the 
American people as eventually to become an important , 



6 

department of the executive brancti of the Federal Govern- 
ment. 

" As one whom the accident of public station brought into 
official relation with this institution, may I not be permitted 
in this presence to call attention to the generally admitted 
fact that no University in the land has shown more of the 
true educational spirit of the age, in its enlarging purposes, 
its constantly increasing facilities and its almost "unparalleled 
success and usefulness, than the University which for so many 
years responded, in its unfolding splendor, to his guiding 
hand. 

' ' The Province of Pennsylvania found a Franklin whose 
prescience drew aside the veil which obscured the necessity 
for a nineteenth- century University within its borders, and 
who moulded the plans and laid the foundations ; while the 
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania more than a century later 
found the strong, capable, enthusiastic organizer to compass 
the full fruition of all that of which Franklin could have 
dreamed. 

" When we recall his youthful face, the depths of his kindly 
eye, the sympathy in his voice and the pervading modesty 
of his bearing, we are wont to wonder how w^ll they con- 
cealed those powers which, in a life so soon ended, made him 
one of the foremost men of his time. 

" An epitaph in St. Paul's Cathedral says if you would know 
the genius of Christopher Wren, ' look around.' Pepper's 
name was trembling on every lip when the newspapers said 
in lines of mourning, ' we have lost our foremost citizen. ' 
Look around. Every alumnus of this University feels a per- 
sonal bereavement. Every member of his profession knows 
that a star has dropped from the firmament wherein it shone 
so brightly. Every student has lost a teacher ; every good 
citizen a champion ; every sick-room a gleam of sunshine ; 
every good cause an advocate ; every patriot an ally, because 
his life was the incarnation of all these. 

' ' The headstones in our cemeteries are often filled with 
excuses made by the living for the dead. There is none 



required to make excuse for him we mouru. No mantle of 
apology is here required. Histor}^ may not gather to her 
bosom the ' arrows of malice, ' there are none. But history 
may say to Philadelphia and to Pennsylvania, ' Behold the 
title deeds of your gratitude.' 

" Perhaps the tendency of the age is lacking in apprecia- 
tion of such work as he accomplished. It seems that -official 
station is demanded by the public thought as a prerequisite 
to distinction. The man who parades in political life, who 
carries a district or gains some advantage over an adversary, 
may be heralded as a genius or a statesman, while the modest 
scholar and model citizen may toil and earn and give his life 
work and accomplish for humanity and country all that can 
be demanded of his genius and patriotism and leave behind 
him foundations upon which untold blessings may be builded 
— and himself sink into an unforgotten grave. 

' ' Let not this be the unrecognized corollary to the accom- 
plished problems in the life of William Pepper. Let those 
who live after him see the direction from whence he came, 
the fields he traversed ; the burdens he bore ; the star upon 
which his eye rested; the purposes that filled his breast; the 
quality of humanity which animated his unwearied and 
unceasing labors ; and the methods which worked out the 
triumphs of a life which we are wont to believe ended all too 



soon." 



The Governor introduced each speaker with the simple an- 
nouncement of his name and the organization for which he re- 
sponded. 

Address on behalf of the Board of Trustees of the 
University of Pennsylvania, by S. Weir Mitch- 
ell, M.D. 

Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, representing the University Trustees, was 
the first speaker, and said : 

" I have seen in the course of my life some of the tributes 
laid by this city on the graves of those who smile no more 



8 

at the applause of men. I can recall no such occasion when 
it became needfal to bring togetber ^o many representative 
voices to express adequately our sense of large service. 

'' This very fact limits each of us, who has here to speak, 
and releases me as one from the too large task of recounting 
the multiplicity of services rendered by a ver^ notable man 
to the city of his birth. 

** I shall leave others to discuss the characteristics of this 
strong and ardent nature which smiled at obstacles and 
seemed to delight in contest with difficulties. 

" Nor shall I make it my task to speak of the larp^e chari- 
ties of Dr. Pepper ; nor of the liberal gifts from head and 
heart to all manner of scientific enterprises. I shall prefer, 
as representing the University of Pennsylvania and its Trus- 
tees, to ask a few minutes that I may simply relate what we 
owe to Dr. Pepper's broad-minded view of oar needs as a 
great school. Even as to this I must be brief, for elsewhere 
in our official history what I might say is set^ out at length 
and I wish rather to express gratitude than to recount well- 
known services. 

" The thought takes me back to a difficult hour in our 
University history. Phillips Brooks had reluctantly declined 
to become provost. Because of his great affection for this 
city (as I personally knew), he hesitated long. One or more 
among us had also thought well to refuse this office. After 
much consultation, William Pepper was nominated. He at 
first refused, and then gave later a promise to serve two years. 
This was in 1881. I think he found rule, authority, the field 
for a large constructive imagination, all to his taste. He 
stayed at his post until 1894. I shall confine myself strictly 
to this period of a notable life, and resist the temptation to 
go back of his time, or outside of William Pepper's work as 
provost. 

' ' His predecessor in office. Provost Stille, had prepared and 
opened the path of progress by taking ns out of a city 
byway to this more ample space. His large-minded and 
intelligent scholarship, since then invaluably illustrated in 



9 

our historical literature, had made itself strongly felt in this 
University. Provost Still e left with us a fresh spirit of 
enterprise. He saw that all universities, not in cities, soon 
created cities around them. Seventy to one hundred thou- 
sand people lie around Harvard, Oxford, or Cambridge. We 
are here placed much as they are. The securing of these 
open spaces prefigured largeness of outlook, liberalness as to 
wise change. 

" Never was nobler chance well used. The place, the time 
and the opportunity had found the man. Before this time 
the University was made up of schools which lacked relating 
bonds. The new provost gave to the University a certain 
oneness of life, which has found its ultimate attainment in 
the materialization of his bold scheme of dormitories, never 
before carried out as part of the corporal system of a city 
university. The Academic Council, the Department of Phi- 
losophy and the better organization of the alumni have" 
strengthened this unifying bond. 

" There were created under Provost Pepper's rule the 
Veterinary School, the Department of Biology, that of 
Hygiene, built by Henr}^ Charles Lea ; the Veterinary Hos- 
pital, the Women's Graduate School and the library. The 
central light and heat building was his thought, and the 
Wistar Institute, the splendid gift of Isaac Wistar, belongs 
to this time of munificent giving, stimulated by the example 
of a personal generosity on the part of the provost such, as 
has been rarely equaled in a man of moderate fortune. 

" To his restless enterprise and fostering activity we owe 
also the splendid museum buildings, and the wonderful 
collection of Assyrian records which have so singularly illus- 
trated the progress of Oriental scholarship, and lighted up 
the dim horizon of historic time. 

" He taught this great city how to value this school of 
learning, 

"If at last we, who are so slowly proud of our past and 
so tardily assured of present distinction, have learned what 
a great University is to the State and city, we owe much of 



10 

tliis belated virtue to William Pepper. If we have at last 
seen tMs University relating itself to the free-school system 
and welcoming its teachers to ever- enlarging and liberal 
opportunities, this, too, was in part Provost Pepper's work. 

" That his lavish giving and his personal influence inspired 
Legislatures and City Councils with like desire to help us is 
not a cause for wonder. It was hard to resist a man so 
buoyant, so sanguine, so sure to give with the one hand when 
he asked with the other. 

" As Provost Stille left to him the temptation of ready 
•opportunities, so has Dr. Pepper's thought and work left to 
Provost Harrison chances which have been energetically used. 

" Under these three reigns this University has become one 
of the four great American schools of learning. In some 
ways it has no rival. I have not time to do more than note 
the vast changes in legal, dental and, above all, medical 
education which came about under Dr. Pepper's rule. The 
lengthening of all these courses met with opposition such as 
might have been expected, and in these contests (especially 
in medicine) before and in his provostship, William Pepper 
displayed a confident courage in the future which I have good 
<3ause to thank and remember. 

" As a presiding officer in the Board of Trustees, Dr. Pep- 
per was decisive, rapid and always the equable master of his 
temper. 

" Others will in time have lold you of his work as a 
teacher and physician : others again must speak of what this 
<3ity elsewhere owes a man who craved work and enjoyed 
varied labor as did no other I have ever known. That he 
died worn out in life's prime is no wonder. 

" In the name of this University, for his associates in the 
Board of Trustees, for the alumni of- this home of learning, 
I thank his memory — grateful with them for what he did, for 
what he gave, for what he showed his successors how to do." 



11 

Address on behalf of the Medical Faculty of the 
University of Pennsylvania, and of the College. 
OF Physicians, by James Tyson, M.D. 

" In the early part of July, 1863, immediately after the 
battle of Gettysburg, I was in charge of a small military 
hospital in Harrisburg, Pa., when notified of my appoint- 
ment as resident physician in the Pennsylvania Hospital. 
Arriving at the Hospital a few days later, I found among the 
staff of officers Mr. William Pepper, Jr. Mr. Pepper was 
then a student of medicine substituting Dr. John Conrad^ 
the Hospital apothecarj^, who was absent on his vacation. 
It fell to my lot to be Dr. Pepper's room-mate during his 
temporary residence at the Hospital, and thus began our 
friendly relations. On Friday, the 1st of July, 1898, I had 
just left my house, and was walking Avest on Spruce street,. 
when Dr. Pepper drove up to the sidewalk, .jumped lightly 
from his carriage and joined- me. He announced that he 
would start for California on the 7th of July, and continued 
walking with me up Spruce street, chatting gaily and laying 
plans for the next summer, until Eighteenth street wa& 
reached, when he left me with a cheerful, hearty good- by. 
I never saw him again. 

" Between these two dates lay just thirty-five years of 
uninterrupted friendship and exceptionally close intercourse.. 
Brightness, alertness, enthusiasm were the qualities which 
I recall of him* at our first meeting. Cheerfulness, hopeful- 
ness, courage — infinite courage, in the light of subsequent, 
events — -were conspicuous at our last. These qualities, 
together with the sweet courtesy which characterized his 
relations with men and women of all stations, are, in a word, 
a description of his personal life. The last-named indispen- 
sable attribute of true gentleness, courtesy and consideration 
alike to all, iDferiors as well as superiors, was as natural ta 
him as life itself, and was one of the secrets of his influence 
over men as well as his success as a physician. It is of him 
as the latter and as a teacher of medicine and author that I 
have been asked to speak to-night in behalf of my col- 



12 

leagues of the Medical Faculty of the University and the 
College of Physicians of Philadelphia. 

-" Dr. Pepper's qualities as a physician were an unusual 
ability in diagnosis, a power to inspire confidence and by a 
rare and inimitable manner to cause those who consulted him 
to feel encouraged and hopeful. His ability in diagnosis was 
founded on a primary intelligence quickened by a rapidity of 
thought and comprehension which enabled him almost at a 
glance to recognize the disturbing causes at work in a sick 
person. His method of diagnosis in this respect was very 
diflferent from that of his father, Dr. William Pepper, who 
was professor of Medicine in the University when his son and 
I were students. His method was to make a patient and 
exhaustive examination of the case, weighing each symptom 
and physical sign, and, after he had done so, to cautiously 
draw his conclusions, which were always well founded and 
rarely changed. The younger Pepper's diagnosis was more 
rapid, more brilliant and, though commonly sustained by the 
autopsy, had sometimes to be altered. I have often been 
surprised, during consultations with him, at the quickness 
with which he recognized a morbid condition and the causes 
leading to it, as well as the consequences which were sure to 
follow it. For many years a close student of morbid 
anatomy, it was his habit to conceive the morbid state 
whence followed naturally the symptoms of the case in hand. 
On the other hand, Dr. Pepper was not dogmatic in diagnosis. 
He was keenly alive to the possibility of error and was 
always ready to admit his mistakes. 

" More striking even was the second attribute mentioned as 
characteristic of Dr. Pepper as a physician, the power to 
encourage and uplift those who consulted him. This effect 
was not confined to the sick alone. In fact, no one who 
knew Dr. Pepper ever failed, at some one time or other, to 
come under this spell of encouragement and upliftedness. 
Time and again I have gone to him concerning some one of 
the matters of our common interest, doubtful and discouraged 
by the outlook, and after a short interview left him hopeful 



13 

and liglit-hearted. So it was with the sick. Hope replaced 
despair in the heart of the patient, and joy replaced sadness 
in that of loving relatives and friends. It is needless to say 
that disappointment and even bitterness sometimes followed 
because the favorable prognosis was not always realized. 
Yet no one dare say that this hopefulness was assumed or that 
any deception was intended. It was the natural outflow of 
a sanguine spirit, and was a part of that same temperament 
which caused him to assume and carry to a successful issue 
large undertakings which others deemed impossible. It 
did far more good than harm, and many lives were prolonged 
and hours of agony averted and substituted by the bliss that 
comes of ignorance. In prescribing for patients he was not 
lavish of drugs, and his prescriptions were simple. He was, 
however, explicit and impressive in direction, so that persons 
rarely forgot what he ordered. Especially apt was he in the 
selection of diet, so that he became unusually successful in 
affections of the stomach and bowels, and acquired an envi- 
able reputation as a specialist in their treatment. 

" It is impossible to separate Dr. Pepper as a physician 
from Dr. Pepper as a teacher. From my earliest recollection 
of him his talks upon medical subjects gave the impression 
of authority, and any one proposing a new venture in teach- 
ing naturally consulted him. He himself early became an 
investigator and teacher. On account of his father's delicate 
health, the younger Pepper did not at once enter a hospital, 
cheerfuly sacrificing to filial duty, opportunities which he, 
above all others, was qualified to appreciate. On this account 
he sought for a time to make outdoor dispensary practice sub- 
stitute the hospital, and worked up his cases in a thorough 
way which any one else would have deemed impossible, 
indeed would scarcely have thought of. I substituted for 
him and followed him in some of this work, and had a good 
opportunity of learning his methods. Later, after his 
father's death, which occurred in 1864, he entered the Penn- 
sylvania Hospital as resident physician, and served eighteen 
months, from April, 1865, to October, 1866. This latter 



14 

course was the natural result of liis enthusiasm in medicine 
and a determination to secure the best possible foundation. 
Many men, having once launched upon practice, would have 
thought it too great a sacrifice to go back to the beginning, 
and start, as it were, afresh. While at the Hospital, he was 
an enthusiastic worker. Onfe could rarely enter his room 
without finding him peering into the microscope or dissecting 
out an aneurism or some other morbid product of the autopsy. 
He was appointed Curator of the Pathological Museum of the 
Pennsylvania Hospital March 26, 1866, and served until 
September 28, 1870. During this time he prepared a descrip- 
tive catalogue of the pathological specimens in the Museum 
numbering 138 closely printed octavo pages, based on one 
previously written by Dr. Thomas Gr. Morton. 

" His teaching began with that of morbid anatomy in a 
course delivered at the Pennsylvania Hospital while Curator 
in 1867. He did not, however, give more than two courses 
at the Hospital, because the institution of an autumn course 
of lectures at the University of Pennsylvania, in 1868, led 
to his appointment as lecturer on this same subject, morbid 
anatomy. His election in 1867 as one of the visiting physi- 
cians to the Philadelphia Hospital (Blockley) gave him the 
first opportunity to lecture to large classes, and he quickly 
became popular as a clinical teacher. In 1870 he was 
appointed lecturer on Clinical Medicine in the University, and 
became professor of Clinical Medicine in 1876. In this year 
also he was appointed Medical Director of the Centennial 
Exposition, and received from the King of Sweden the decor- 
ation of Knight Commander of the Order of St. Olaf in recog- 
nition of his distinguished services. In 1881: he succeeded 
Prof. Alfred Stille as professor of the Theory and Practice of 
Medicine and Clinical Medicine and held this chair until his 
death, July 28, 1898. During thirteen years of this period, 
1881 to 1894, he was also Provost of the University. 

" His greatest ability was shown in teaching clinical medi- 
cine. He attracted students and patients from all parts of 
the country, and his Saturday clinics were often made up of 



15 

cases who liad thus come to seek his opinion. He never 
hesitated to take up any case, however difficult, and gener- 
ally succeeded in unfolding it to the edification of the class 
and satisfaction of the patient. 

" In didactic teaching, though attractive, he was less con- 
spicuously successful. Latterly his numerous engagements 
made a thorough preparation of his lectures impossible, and 
led at times to a diffaseness which weakened their force and 
emphasis. His readiness at speaking favored this, and he has 
told me that this very facility of speech which served him 
so often and so well was really a disadvantage to him. 
Graceful and easy in manner, yet dignified and totally with- 
out vulgar oratorical eftbrt, his pleasant voice, distinct utter- 
ance and great command of language made his speech truly 
silvern. 

" Dr. Pepper's conception of the office of the medical teacher 
was a very broad one. He would have him broadly educated 
in letters and arts as well as learned in medicine, an associate 
of men and interested in public enterprises — in a word, a man 
of affairs, not a mere pedaojogue in the narrower sense of the 
term. He considered that it was the teacher's privilege and 
duty to take an active part in the management of his College 
or University and his own life was an exemplification of his 
ideal. 

" Dr. Pepper cannot be considered as a teacher of medicine 
from the standpoint of the lecturer only. As a writer he 
taught many more than as a lecturer. It would, however, be 
impossible to treat of him as an author except in the most 
superficial manner in the short time allotted me. With the 
preparation of his thesis, which was commenced in the sum- 
mer of our residence at the Pennsylvania Hospital referred 
to, began a long series of practical papers pu.blished chiefly 
in the Proceedings of the Pathological Society^ the American 
Journal of the Medical Sciences^ The Medical and Surgical 
Reporter^ The Medical Times^ which he founded in 1870, and 
edited for two years ; The Medical Neivs, and finally the 
Philadelphia Medical Journal^ which also owes its existence 



16 

to him. His first paper of importance was on ' The Flaor- 
escence of Tissues,' and appeared in the first volume of the 
Pennsylvania Hospital Reports in 1868. It was prepared in 
conjunction with his friend, Dr. Edward Ehoads, and involved 
much physical and chemical research. Its object was to 
show that a substance found in the normal tissues by Bence 
Jones, which possessed a property of fluorescence like quinine 
and called by him ' animal quinoidine,' disappeared under 
the influence of the malarial poison. 

" Another paper of great value published in the same 
volume of the Pennsylvania Hospital Reports was ' On the 
Morphological Changes of the Blood in Malarial i'ever,' by 
Dr. J. Forsyth Meigs, assisted by Dr. Edward Ehoads and 
Dr. Pepper. The article was based on the study of 123 cases 
of a severe form of bilious fever with six deaths which 
occurred in the service of Dr. Meigs " at the Pennsylvania 
Hospital during the summer of 1865, while Dr. Pepper and 
Dr. Ehoads were resident physicians. All the details of the 
study were made by Dr. Pepper and Dr. Ehoads, and involved 
an enormous amount of microscopical investigation. 

" Among the more important subjects treated in this earlier 
part of his career were ' Phosphorus Poisoning,' American Jour- 
nal of the Medical Sciences^ in 1869 ; ' Variola,' ibid.^ 1869 ; 
' Tracheotomy in Chronic Laryngitis,' Pfdladeljihia Medical 
Times^ 1870; ' Abdominal Tumors,' ibid.^ 1870; 'Trephining 
in Cerebral Disease,' American Journal of the Medical Sciences, 
1871; ' Progressive Muscular Sclerosis, or, Hypertrophic 
Muscular Paralysis,' Philadelphia Medical Ti,mes^ 1871 ; 
' Local Treatment of Tuberculous Cavities in the Lungs,' 
American Journal of the Mtdical Sciences, 1874 ; ' Operative 
and Treatment of Pleural Effusions,' Philadelphia Medical 
Times, 1871 ; ' Progressive Pernicious Anaemia ' American 
Journal of the Medical Sciences, 1875 ; ' Addison's Disease 
and Its Eelations to Annematoses,' ibid., 1877 ; 'Appendicitis, ' 
Transactions of the Medical Society of Pennsylvania^ 1876. 
The papers on ' Progressive Pernicious Anaemia,' and ' Addi- 
son's Disease ' were exhaustive and up to date of publication. 



17 

In the former lie suggested the name of 'An^matosis/ which 
has been acknowledged by Hermann Eichhorst and Thomas 
Clifford Albutt. The paper on ' Appendicitis ' was also a 
valuable one, his experience having been large and his stud- 
ies among the first important contributions to the subject. 

" Among his more recent papers was a contribution to the 
' Climatological Study of Phthisis in Pennsylvania,' read 
before the Climatological Association at its third annual 
session in 1886. It was a methodical and exhaustive investi- 
gation into the territorial distribution of consumption in the 
State of Pennsylvania, and of its causes, illustrated by elabo- 
rate maps showing the peculiarities of soil and climate of 
each county, and must be the basis of all future investiga- 
tions into the same subject in the State of Pennsylvania. 

'* Of his larger works, his edition of the late Dr. John 
Forsythe Meigs' book on Diseases of Children^ published in 
1870, came first. The book was largely rewritten by him and 
much enlarged, so that it was properly renamed, Meigs and 
Pepper on Diseases of Children. It was for years the stan- 
dard text-book on this subject in this country, and was highly 
esteemed in England. A System of Medicine by American 
Authors^ 1885-6, a treatise in five large octavo volumes, was 
edited by Dr. Pepper. He did not personally contribute 
many articles, but two of the most important, that on 
' Catarrhal Pneumonia ' and that on ' Relapsing Fever,' were 
written by him and will come to be regarded among medi- 
cal classics. He had unusual opportunities for the study 
of relapsing fever in the epidemic which prevailed in Phila- 
delphia in 1879, and his paper is perhaps the most valuable 
ever written on the subject by an American. 'Pepper's 
System,' as it is called, became at once the recognized 
authority in all diseases prevalent in this country and many 
thousand copies were sold in a verv short time. Its success 
was also largely due to the signal ability shown in the selec- 
tion of collaborators. No similar work published in this 
country included so brilliant an array of authors. Every one 
was anxious to enlist under his banner and no one declined. 



18 

His latest work was a Text-hook of Medicine^ by different au- 
thors. It consisted of two large octavo volumes, was pub- 
lished in 1893-1894:, and had a large sale among students and 
physicians. 

"Dr. Pepper's addresses, of which he made many on 
medical subjects, were always happy and among the most 
effective of his efforts, I well remember the impression 
made by one of the earliest of these, the ' Address in Medi- 
cine, ' before the Pennsylvania. State Medical Society at its 
meeting in Pottsville in 1875, when he was but thirt}^ years 
old. Full of practical information, clearly and impressively 
read, it was tbe most refreshino; event of the meetino-. The 
older members of the Society were enthusiastic over it, and 
it won him many admirers. 

' ' His two addresses, ' Hisher Medical Education the True 
Interest of the Public and of the Profession,' read before the 
Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania, were 
admirable examples of his power in this direction. The 
first was delivered October 1, 1877, on the occasion of the 
change of curriculum from two to three years, and the second 
sixteen years later, on October 2, 1893, at the inauguration of 
the four-year course of medical study. They abound in im- 
portant and interesting information, including statistical data 
of great value, attractively and forcibly presented. 

''To be eloquent on subjects connected with medicine 
is very difficult, well-nigh impossible, and yet in his presi- 
dential address before the first Pan-American Medical Con- 
gress, in Washington, September, 1893, Dr. Pepper held in 
rapt attention a large and promiscuous audience. Its subject 
was ' The State of this Continent and its Aboriginal Inhab- 
itants at the time of its discovery b}^ Columbus, and the 
obstacles which opposed him and the great men who com- 
pleted his work,' together Avith ' The state of Medical 
Science in Europe at the time of the discovery and the 
spirit which controlled its subsequent course.' Like the 
two University addresses alluded to, it abounds in valuable 
information involving laborious historical research gathered 



19 

land collated at a time when he was excessively busy. It 
•excited the enthusiastic admiration of the representatives 
irom British and Spanish America, and from South America 
and Mexico, which was reflected in the reception given to 
him in the city of Mexico at the second triennial meeting of 
this Congress in 1896, and in the memorial meeting held in 
-the city of Mexico since his death. The Pan-American Con- 
gress itself is a permanent monument of his ability as an or- 
ganizer. At its inception he had few sympathizers, but like 
all else he undertook he made the Washington meeting a mag- 
nificent success, and the two splendid volumes of nearly 1200 
pages each, which contain the transactions published in 
English and Spanish, abundantly attest it. They include a 
vast amount of information bearing on medicine from all 
parts of North and South America, which could in no other 
way have been accumulated. He was' ably seconded in the 
organization of the Congress by Dr. Charles A. Reed, of 
Cincinnati, the Secretary General. 

" Dr. Pepper took a warm interest in the medical societies 
•of the city and country. As has been the case with so many 
of the medical men of Philadelphia, who obtained distinction, 
the Pathological Society was the arena in which he first 
;availed himself of opportunity. He became a member in 
1865, and was for a long time the most energetic and active 
of its members. The Transactions abound in reports of 
specimens presented by him, eighty-four in all, in a compara- 
tively short time, and in remarks made by him on specimens 
exhibited by others. Pie was made Vice-President in 1870, 
and President from 1873 to 1876. He became a member of 
-the Philadelphia County Medical Society in 1871, and of the 
Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania in 1875, and in 
the early part of his career was a frequent contributor to 
their Proceedings. His proposition for membership to the 
County ^ledical Society was signed by Drs. Alfred Stille, 
Auo;ustus H. Fish and Charles S. Boker. The first is still 
living. The last two preceded Dr. Pepper in death. He 
was one of the founders of the Obstetrical Society of 



20 

Philadelphia in 1869. He was chairman of the Committee 
of Airancrements of the American Medical Association 

o 

when the latter met in Philadelphia, in 1876. At the 
annual meeting of this Association, held at Newport, 
R. I., in June, 1888, he read an impressive sketch of Dr. 
Benjamin Rush, and became thus the instrument of numerous 
subscriptions made on the spot to the Rush Monument Fund. 
He was a member of the American ISTeurological and Clima- 
tological Societies, and one of the founders (1886) of the 
Association of American Physicians, a society then limited 
to one hundred of the physicians of the United States and 
Canada, and was its President in 1891. 

"Another one of the numerous monuments to his ability 
as an organizer is the Triennial Congress of American 
Physicians and Surgeons. Although he was not the origina- 
tor of this association — this distinction resting with the late 
Dr. Claudius Mastin, of Mobile, Ala., Dr. Pepper was 
chairman of the first Executive Committee, and skillfully 
guided this body to a successful organization of the Congress, 
and he made an able address at the opening meeting in 
Washington, September 18, 1889. 

" Dr. Pepper was elected a Fellow of the College of Phy- 
sicians in 1867, and immediately took an active interest in its 
proceedings. His most important papers were ' Trephining 
in Cerebral Disease,' read May 18, 1870 ; ' The Internal Use 
of Mtrate of Silver,' read May 7, 1877, and ' Addison's 
Disease,' read January 7, 1886. In addition to these papers, 
his remarks on the communications of other Fellows were 
always full of valuable information gained from his reading 
and rapidly growing experience. Thus succeeding a paper 
read by Dr. J. Ewing Mears, June 2, 1875, ' On Encysted 
Dropsy of the Peritoneum,' although Dr. Pepper had been 
only eleven years in practice, he cited three cases of the rare 
condition of encysted dropsy of the abdomen which had 
occurred in his practice. And thus it was with every sub- 
ject which came up when he happened to .be present. In 
consequence of the exacting demands on his time by the 



21 

numerous and important interests in ^v'hicli he was concerned 
of late years, lie was compelled, much to his personal regret, 
to neglect the meetings of the College, but he always took a 
warm interest and I know looked for^yard to the time when, 
freed of some of his responsibilities, he might again con- 
tribute to its proceedings and take a hand in its management. 
It was through his instrumentality chiefly that, a number of 
years ago, about 1870, the College for a time increased its 
meetings to two a month, with the idea that one meeting 
should be devoted to scientific matters onh^, and the other to 
business. At that day, however, the number of Fellows was 
much smaller and there was much less activity among them, 
so that the semi-monthly meetings could not be maintained. 
Quite recently when it appeared to some of us that the time 
had come for the formation of a section in medicine for the 
purpose of stimulating this department, Dr. Pepper attended 
the meetinor for organization, in January, 1897, thous^h he 
was at the time overwhelmed with work, and had not for a 
lonor time attended a similar meetins:. This was the last 
meeting of a Medical Society he ever attended. 

" For several years prior to 1898, Philadelphia was without 
a first-class weekly medical journal. Dr. Pepper, always 
alive to the interests of Philadelphia in all directions, felt 
tliat this was a serious drawback to the positon the city had 
always held in medical affairs, and decided that it must not 
continue. Earlv in the fall of 1897, he besan to oroanize a 
company for the purpose of establishing such a journal, and, 
Avith his usual sagacity, he sought to interest not a single 
school of medicine only, but all the schools in Philadelphia, 
as well as the profession at large. But more than this, he 
did what had never been done before. He succeeded in 
interesting prominent business men other than publishers of 
medical books, including those of large experience in the 
management of successful ncAvspapers. By the 1st of Octo- 
ber, 1897, the arrangements were completed, a Board of 
Trustees organized, and Dr. George M. Gonld appointed^ 
editor, with an Executive Committee representing all inter- 



22 

ests, to aid him. On Saturday, January 1, 1898, appeared 
the first nuQiber of the Philadelphia Medical Journal^ which 
has already established itself in the front rank of the medical 
journals of the world, and adds another to the many results 
of Dr. Pepper's public spirit and energy. 

"Dr. Pepper was an easy, clear and forcible writer as he 
was a speaker. He had excellent command of the resources 
of the language and was never at a loss for appropriate 
and well-chosen words to express himself. He was at all 
times too busy a • man to devote time to the evolution 
of ornately expressed thought or sentiment, but what he wrote 
was always interesting and neatly expressed. It is really 
necessarj^ to go back to some of his earlier writings to appre- 
ciate the possibilities of his style in this direction. In the 
memoir of his dear friend, Edward Khoads, read before the 
College of Physicians, February 7, 1871, will be found a 
sentiment which is as appropriate to this occasion as it was 
on that of the lovinsr tribute to his friend. It is as follows : 

" ' The wheels of human life and action revolve cease- 
lessly, and place a rapidly increasing distance between us and 
any passing event. Each day's cares and activity throng the 
mind, and dim the images of the past that memory seeks to 
cherish, until the joy or sorrow that for the time filled the 
whole life seems in but a few months only the shadowy 
phantom of some far-distant experience. 

" ' It is true, moreover, that in a life so full and overfull of 
thought and action as that of the present day, there is but 
little leisure left to devote to the contemplation of the future, 
and far less to spend in reflection on the past. Whatever the 
past has made us, we are ; whatever it has given to us, we hold 
and strive to make the means of securing more and more ; 
but of what it has taken from us, we rarelv think, but turn 
impatiently from the sorrowful reminiscences which some- 
times stir in the depths of our being, mutteriug, •• Let the 
dead past bury its dead." To a great extent this is needful, 
if we are to advance in our work: actively and hopefully. 
Bat do we not often carry this too far, and in struggling 



23 

manfully against the depression and despondency wMcli 
follow a great grief, often end in not only throwing off these, 
but also in forgetting and losing much of the sweetness and 
usefulness which might always remain Avith us V 

''' That with his talents, his education, his opportunities and 
his energy, Dr. Pepper should have accomplished all he did 
as a physician, a teacher of medicine and medical writer is 
not strange. Others have perhaps done as much. But that 
he should have accomplished thus much and as much more 
as he did in the thirty-five short years of his active life is 
truly marvelous. The measure of what he accomplished 
outside the part allotted me to consider will appear from others 
before the evening has closed, but I may be permitted to 
sum up by saying that what he accomplished made him easily 
what he was at the date of his too early death — Philadel- 
phia'' s first and foremost citizen.^'' 



Address on behalf of the Wistar Institute, by Gen. 
Isaac J. Wistar. 

''I have been honored by the invitation to contribute a 
few Av^ords on this occasion, res^ardingf the connection and 
labor of Dr. William Pepper, in respect of the institution of 
which he Avas the first President, the Wistar Institute of 
Anatomy and Biology. That institution, although it exists 
in independent or separate corporate form, is nevertheless 
inseparably connected, as it has always been, with the 
University, to Avhich its permanent future control has been, 
for reasons of mutual advantage, assured. But notAvithstand- 
ing the limited time at my disposal, I do not find it easy to 
assign its proper value to the Avork of Dr. Pepper in this 
connection, Avithout premising a brief sketch of the Institute 
prior to its incorporation and existing organization. 

'' Caspar Wistar, whose name has been borne for nearly a 
century by that Institute, was born in Philadelphia in 1761, 
became professor of Anatomy in this University in 1808, and 
died in the year 1818. Though graduated in 1782 from this 



24 

University, he continaed during several years to pursue his 
postgraduate studies in Edinburgh and London. In both 
places he obtained considerable reputation as an anatomist and 
naturalist, and continued during his life to correspond with 
Cuvier, Sommering and other European scholars distin- 
guished in those branches of learning. In London, Dr. John 
Hunter was still living and had filled his house with prepara- 
tions of normal and abnormal anatomy, to the collection of 
which he had devoted his life and the entire earnings of his 
large practice. That collection was the completest of its 
kind then existing, though it was not till after the death of 
Hunter, and until his collection had come into the custody of 
the London College of Surgeons and received certain pecu- 
niary assistance from the government, that it became the 
great museum it now is, the most synoptical and complete in 
the world, as it has appeared to me after careful examination 
of the principal European museums of similar character. I 
may add that the Hunterian museum has recently received a 
bequest equivalent to about a million dollars of our money, 
which, with previous contributions and endowments, renders 
it the strongest and best endowed anatomical museum now 
existing, if we except those which are directly supported by 
their respective governments. 

" Dr. Wistar, having been much impressed by the practical 
value of Hunter's collection, as well as by the absence of any 
such facilities in America, commenced a similar collection 
immediately on taking the Philadelphia Chair of Anatomy, 
and from that time till his death devoted much of his time 
and a considerable part of his fortune to that object. His 
collection, which at the time of his death already had a 
large pecuniary as well as scientific value, was presented by 
his widow to the University. Dr. William E. Horner, who 
had been an assistant and colleague of Wistar, and ulti- 
mately succeeded to his professorial chair, continued during 
his life to give a competent and judicious care to the growing 
museum, which was also fostered and increased from time to 
time by manv distinguished men of the medical profession- 



25 

It was also to tlie learning and skill of Dr. Joseph Leidy, during 
his long term in the same chair, that the museum is perhaps 
more indebted than to any other one person after the 
founder. The collection, already grown to large proportions, 
was in 1888 seriously injured by an accidental fire which 
destroyed the roof over it, damaged many preparations, 
especially those in wax, and would probably have destroyed 
the whole, but for the zeal and devotion of the faculty and 
students, some of whom were considerably injured in remov- 
ing the specimens. It became evident to all, that it was 
useless to consume the efforts of earnest lives, and years of 
time, in accumulating a peculiar collection, only susceptible 
of slow growth and still slower replacement, unless its future 
safety from such ordinary accidents could be reasonably 
assured. But the museum, though rich in specimens, and 
generously fostered by three generations of the medical profes- 
sion, was poor in pecuniary resources, so poor that in 1890 it 
had great difficulty in obtaining by subscription a small sum 
to support the curator and renew the antiquated catalogue. 

" These circumstances having attracted the solicitude of 
friends of the University, of which Dr. William Pepper was 
then provost, as well as a professor in the medical faculty? 
certain questions like the following were proposed to him : 
What was the real value of the collection to the University 
and its medical education ? Was the faculty and the profession 
sufficiently interested to keep it up if moderately assisted ? 
To what lines of progress should its friends best address- 
themselves ? How far should the museum be combined 
with the instruction given to undergraduates or others ? and 
finally, Should a safe building be obtained for it, upon what 
amount of secure annual income could it gradual!}^ advance 
to completeness as a museum, while discharging the other 
functions properly pertaining to it ? 

" To these and similar questions Dr. Pepper at once ad- 
dressed himself with minuteness and care. He commu- 
nicated with many competent persons at home and abroad^ 
and soon arrived at such favorable conclusions, and main- 



26 

tained tliem with such conviction, that the project was effec- 
tively taken up. An incorporation was obtained in 1892, 
under a State charter, such elective rights being confirmed to 
the University as assured its permanent control within 
defined limits. The University contributed the collection 
and a liberal area of land for a building. A fireproof build- 
ing was constructed and suitably furnished, and a sufficient 
endowment was vested in trustees to secure its future useful- 
ness and progress. Perhaps the most important of those 
arrangements was the determination of the lines of work to 
be pursued, with the proper scope and functions of the Insti- 
tute, and the selection of competent men to inaugurate and 
keep it on its designed course. In these important prelimi- 
naries Dr. Pepper was active and indispensable. With his 
large and ardent nature, his natural tendency was to attempt 
largely ; to diffuse and attenuate effort, rather than to concen- 
trate for more moderate though surer res alts. But no one 
ever conducted discussion or appreciated argument with more 
readiness and amiability, and his generous breadth of view 
served well to protect the undertaking from limitations too 
narrow for future eventualities. Thus the foundations at 
length laid with his assistance were, as all now see, broad but 
safe. The eminent anatomists whom he selected for director 
and assistant, have brought abundant knowledge and experi- 
ence to their task, and have matured views which seem salu- 
tary and promising to all concerned. The success Avhich he 
and they have attained during the few years of his presi- 
dencv attests the minute care of small details, no less than 
the wealth of foresight that is especially necessary in a large 
experimental undertaking which, however useful it may prove 
in its annual progress, can scarcely be expected to reach its 
culmination and perfection except in a more or less distant 
future. 

" These are some features of the indispensable usefulness 
of William Pepper to that institution in the early days of its 
revival. They have been broadly and briefly sketched in 
accordance with the short time allotted. He has left us at a 



27 

period of his life and labors which may be considered early 
and untimely ; but like all other interests he cared for, which 
had sufficiently matured, he has left the Institute soundly 
based, intelligently directed and rapidly advancing on well- 
considered lines of action. The present distinguished Provost 
of the University has accepted succession in the presidency, 
and in his able and experienced hands, its continued success 
need not be considered doubtful. 

" But in thus losing forever our beloved coadjutor, presi- 
dent and friend, under what conventional expressions can be 
concealed the affections rudely severed, the copartuership in 
public labors sundered, the joint plans and projects broken 
and destroyed ? Chill and cold indeed seems the best philos- 
ophy that can be summoned for alleviation. Nevertheless 
we are not to forget that the march of nature is ever onward, 
and she has never changed her steps for any human grief. 
Disruption, change, death and reconstruction is the invariable 
order in w^hich her work is done. If there be any more uni- 
versal characteristic than another of all matter dead and 
living, it is its continual movement, its unceasing tendency to 
change. The fiery materials of our planet had no sooner 
acquired superficial consistency than modifications began in 
every part, that have never since been suspended for a 
moment. Thev beo^an before terrestrial life existed, and under 
prevailing laws will survive it all. Constant changes of 
internal and external temperature have produced unceasing 
variations in relative land and water levels, in air and water 
currents, in climate, and the life which it encourages or per- 
mits. Agassiz found marks of massive ice action in tropical 
rocks, and Arctic explorers tell of thick beds of fossil vege- 
tation in the now desolate regions of the pole. With the 
inorganic material of life, life itself has advanced from the 
unicellular and structureless protozoans to the comparatively 
recent but magnificent cranial development of man, and there 
is no reason to suppose that such development has ceased or 
will ever cease, except with the termination of all life. Bu.t 
for reasons that we cannot penetrate, it has been so ordained 



28 

that this perpetual and universal movement, in order to 
become constructive, must first be eminently destructive. 
When we consider the ultimate constituents of the food of 
vegetables and animals, and the methods by which they are 
appropriated and prepared for use, we cannot avoid the con- 
clusion that while every individual life must end, all physical 
life is founded upon death, that it is only from death that life 
arises, that it is by the death of something that every crea- 
ture, sentient and insentient, must live. Thus, if there can 
be no death without previous life, it is equally true there can 
be no life without antecedent death. Both are inseparable 
phenomena of that endless procession of conscious matter 
which moves forever across the face of time, and always 
toward higher specialization. Whether nature's methods be 
atomic or molecular, chemical or mechanical, is of little con- 
sequence to any single generation. To our ephemeral appre- 
hension her operations seem of extreme slowness, but they 
are continuous and incessant. Even in the far-oflp solitudes 
of the universe, the stars and suns of illimitable space perish 
one by one and are lost to us as light-giving bodies. But 
they are as constantly replaced by new aggregations, so that 
to the unlearned or careless eye the general aspect even of 
remotest space remains apparently the same. 

"If we descend from the measureless spaces of the uni- 
verse to our own minute affairs, so the stars of our lives, the 
friends whom we have loved and leaned upon, depart and go 
hence, one by one. Despondency is too apt to follow such 
accumulating losses. We feel that our walk hereafter must 
be more solitary, that our affections are irreparably severed, 
our enthusiasms broken, our ambitions worthless, our pro- 
jects abandoned. Yet if we are to retain any part in useful 
life we must resist such weakness. Even in our distress we 
must turn to nature, who restores more than she destroys — • 
and contemplate the marvelous sequence with which her 
destructions are followed by reconstructions, death by new 
life, privation, struggle and apparent disaster, by more glori- 
ous progress and advance. From her continual and unceasing 



29 

processes we shall learn, that in her progress to perfection, 
we at least can specify no one thing that is more essential 
than death. From the imposing range of snow-capped moun- 
tains that regulates the climate and productions of a conti- 
aent, doAvn to a single indiv^idual life, all things have their 
uses and outlast them, to be replaced by new instrumen- 
talities still better adapted to her triumphant march. We 
shall realize that every generation and every moment brings 
forth new individuals, new affections, profounder knowledge ; 
that new backs are born for every burden, and, above all, 
that those reparatory processes — however painful to individ- 
uals — will go on ceaselessly throughout the future, constantly 
leading our posterity to new knowledge on higher planes, till 
long after the current generations shall have been returned 
to dust. 

" Here in this great seat of learning — -if anywhere — we 
may confidently look for — and perhaps gain from each other 
— that courage and intelligence which shall know how to 
yield with cheerful readiness to the common lot, content for 
ourselves and those we have loved, if during the brief space 
accorded to each, our lives have been used for the best advan- 
tage of our kind, as Avas that of our departed friend, William 
Pepper." 

Address on behalf of the Archeological and Paleonto- 
LOGiCAL Museum of the Universitv of Pennsylva- 
nia, BY Mr. Daniel Baugh. 

" l^early eleven years ago, in the early months of 1888, 
a few miscellaneous antiquities, given to the University by 
a few individuals, were gathered together in a room of this 
College building. 

" These, including a few casts and squeezes of Babylonian 
inscriptions, a number of Palmyrene tombstones, and some 
pieces of Etruscan and Roman pottery, formed the beginning 
of the University Museum. 

" Almost simultaneously with this modest effort, Dr. 
Pepper, then provost, heard that a small number of scholarly 



30 

men were organizing a scientific expedition to southern 
Babylonia. With his usual acumen he sought to bring this 
project within the patronage of the University. A connec- 
tion of mutual advantage was established a year or two later 
by which the site of ancient Nippur was exhumed under the 
auspices of the University of Pennsylvania ; and, in due 
time, rich results found their way into its possession. 

" In 1889 Provost Pepper established the Museum of 
Archaeology and Palaeontology in the upper rooms of the 
Library Building, then just completed — where a very small 
portion of the collections since acquired is still displayed 
awaiting its installation in the new Museum of Science and 
Art now approaching completion. 

" Concurrent with the establishment of the Museum, an 
Archseological Association was formed for the purpose of 
providing funds and, in other ways, of promoting scientific 
exploration in cooperation with the Museum. Archaeological 
research and the publication of results were thus provided 
for by an organized effort which promised a comprehensive 
range of investigation. 

" The work progressed rapidly. A number of earnest 
men and women, convinced by his own earnestness of the 
value of these undertakings, rallied around them, and once 
success was assured. Dr. Pepper, in 1891, created the Depart- 
ment of Archaeology and Palaeontology of the University of 
Pennsylvania. . . , 

" Since that date new sections have gradually been added. 
Expeditions have been sent to Peru, to Florida, to the Arctic 
region, and excavations have been continued upon the 
EuDhrates and carried on in the Etruscan field — whilst, in 
cooperation with other organized bodies of Europe and 
America, collections have been secured from excavations 
conducted in Egypt and in Central America. 

" When, after tendering his resignation as Provost of the 
University, Dr. Pepper, in 1894, accepted the presidency of 
its Department of Archaeology, the peculiar qualities of his 
genius shone forth more brilliantly, ).3rhaps, than they did 
in any other undertaking. 



31 

" Although a scholar bj training and a leader by nature, 
he was then entering upon a new and special scientific field, 
for which nothing in his previous experience had prepared 
him. He was dealing with new men, new ideas, new results. 
Yet in an incredibly short time his masterful mind grasped 
the practical details of the contemporary development and of 
the methods of archaeological research, sufficiently to enable 
him, not only to guide the multiple ventures of the depart- 
ment through the shoals of national and international connec- 
tions, but to plan extensive and original departures in mu- 
seum management. 

' ' Thus equipped, he mapped out a broad policy of coopera- 
tion with other institutions, and, as a beginning, established 
special working relations with Harvard, the Smithsonian 
Institution and the Bureau of American Ethnology at Wash- 
ington, as well as with the Egypt Exploration Fund and the 
Egypt Research Account in England. 

" His acceptance of the presidency of the Pennsylvania 
Branch of the Archaeological Institute of America, as well as 
his founding the American Exploration Society, of which he 
was also the first President, were intended to link and to 
lastingly cement the local interests of the Department with 
the general archaeological interests of the country at large ; 
and, in this city, he strove to draw into the closest possible 
relation the Museum of Science and Art and the Philadelphia 
Museums. 

' ' He ever held in view the importance of preventing the 
possibilit}' of antagonisms from arising among kindred inter- 
ests, and systematically aimed at a concentration of effort. 
With extraordinary discernment he peered into the future 
and foresaw a time when the museums of the country might, 
to their mutual advantage, enter into an alliance, and when, 
by working in closer cooperation, they might offer a better 
service at a minimum cost to the public by lessening the 
existing tendency to a duplication of effort. 

' ' Thus it was that this eminent physician, burdened with 
an exacting daily practice, this distinguished author of 



32 

important medical works, this public-spirited citizen who was 
always found in the lead of every progressive movement 
having for its object the promotion of public education, of 
public health and of public prosperity, was rapidly finding 
his place among the advanced thinkers on the subject of 
museum policy, and had he lived, he must soon have been 
recognized as one of our leading museum men. In no 
part of Dr. Pepper's brilliant career can we find a more 
remarkable illustration of his genius. In the four brief 
years of his administration he not only set the stamp of 
his great personality upon the scientific conduct of the 
work, but he obtained from the city the land necessary to 
carry out his museum schemes, and he raised over a half 
million dollars for their support. And this he did whilst 
carrying the burden of the many public responsibilities, 
the splendid representation of which here to-night testifies to- 
his almost universal grasp of human acquirements — as well 
as to the unlimited scope of his public usefulness. 

^' His life will ever mark an era in this community, for it 
was an inspiration to others ; and he made disciples, ta 
whom he taught his doctrine of the insignificance of private 
comfort and of individual pleasure when weighed in the 
scales against public duty. 

" ' You and I must pass away,' he repeatedly said, ' but 
these things will last.' 

" Although to some of these followers he bequeathed his 
ideas, this great citizen — our greatest citizen since the days 
of Franklin — took away with him to the grave the magnet- 
ism of his own personality, and the hopeful cheerfulness 
with which his untiring energy met every obstacle, and 
aroused in others the courage necessary to overcome difiicul- 
ties. The nerve, nay, the heroism, with which to the last, 
in the face of physical pain and of fast- approaching death, 
he carried his self-imposed burdens to a point where others, 
less powerful than he, could lift and carry them, was an 
object lesson which none of us can forget. 

' ' This he did deliberately, in spite of the warnings of his 



33 

associates and of the prayers of his friends. Indeed, what 
need was there of warnings to this great physician who 
almost daily weighed himself and carefully watched the 
terrible symptoms of coming dissolution — not that he might 
take care of himself, mark you, but that he might hasten 
and accomplish his task before death could overtake him ! 
And with each stem warning, received from his own trained 
judgment, that his life's sands were running low, he re- 
doubled his exertions — almost in despair because something 
must be left undone and because the burden must fall heavilj^ 
upon those who had understood and helped him, and who 
now must forge on alone. ' If it costs me my life, I must 
see this thing through,' he would often say during the last 
few months of his short career, and this was said calmly, with 
his hand on his pulse, when death was written upon every 
line of his face. 

" The Museum of Science and Art connected with this Uni- 
versity was the last creation of Dr. Pepper's genius — and it 
was upon its welfare that he, at the time of his death, be- 
stowed his greatest solicitude. He died on July 28, and only 
twenty days before that event he sought, by a formal 
expression, to practically soften the blow which his possible 
loss must inflict upon the Institution. This last thought of 
the dying man must ever remain a precious memory to his col- 
leagues and to the Institution which already owes him so much. 

" To-night we are assembled to do him honor, here, upon 
this ground which he loved so well and under the auspices of 
this University — ^his alma mater — to which he dedicated and 
gave the best of his life. 

" We miss his thoughtful, patient face ; but his spirit, his 
highest purpose, his living thought are still with us. They 
form the immortal part of his personality, and are not only 
embodied in the many buildings erected and in the many 
institutions established under his guidance, but in the hearts 
of those to w^hom he taught the great lesson of citizenship — 
to give, to trust, to bear ; cheerful liberality, faith in the 
future, and the patience to work and to wait."' 



34 

Address on behalf of the General Alumni Society of 
THE University of Pennsylvania, by Hampton L. 
' Carson, Esq. 

" It is my privilege to speak at this memorial meeting in 
behalf of the General Alamni Association. I do so with zeal 
and interest, because between the family of Dr. Pepper and 
my own there has long existed a close and cordial relation. 
Nearly forty years ago his father was my father's colleague 
in the Faculty of Medicine ; at the present time his nephew 
and myself are colleagues in the Faculty of Law, another 
nephew is a student in my office, and I can entertain no more 
pleasing hope than that his sons and mine may at some 
future time be associated as fellow-laborers in some field of 
useful exertion. 

" Wendell Phillips once said: ' We are sometimes so 
near an object that we cannot see it. I could place you so 
near the City Hall to-night that you would not know whether 
you were looking at a ton of granite or a wall of a large 
building. So it is with a fact. The men who stand the 
nearest to it are often the last to recognize either its breadth 
or its meaning.' I may add to this remark by saying, go it 
is with a great man. So long as he is alive and brushing 
against us, we are unable to truly estimate the value of his 
services, or to compute with accuracy the sum total of his 
energies. Our loss is so recent that perhaps it is even now 
too soon to appraise the character of Dr. Pepper. When 
Horace Binney saw Washington and Franklin on the State 
House pavement, I doubt if he knew, as he did fifty years 
later, how great and admirable they were. I believe that 
the next generation will perceive more clearly than ours how 
far above the great mass of his contemporaries Dr. Pepper 
stood in the varied relations of physician, teacher, author, 
educator and citizen. 

" The first feature which strikes us is his versatility. This 
was extraordinary. While great in medicine, he was greater 
still in other fields. In speech, in the discussion of public 
affairs, in contact with men, he was powerful, persistent, wary 



35 

and skillfal. He resembled his predecessor, Benjamin RusTi, 
who, while laying the foundations of the greatest of American 
medical schools and winning professional renown, served as a 
member of the Continental Congress, and is enrolled among 
the world's immortals ; but, unlike Rush, he never held or 
sought public office, but yet toiled ceaselessly for the public 
good. He was magnetic, but, his special form of magnetism 
was intellectual rather than sympathetic. Although kind- 
hearted, he was not emotional, and hence did not conquer by 
that subtle attraction between individuals which gives birth 
to blind devotion, but he swayed men by his intellectual 
energy, which overcame prejudice and coerced submission, a 
force far more potential in results, because guarded against 
sudden bursts of destructive impulse, and controlled bv that 
element of calculation and business sagacity which foresees 
difficulty and provides against defeat. He was a man of 
high public aims. His whole career is a process of creation 
and ascension in public affairs. He stepped from the position 
of simple practitioner to the higher one of text-writer and 
professor, and from a subordinate place in a single depart- 
ment he rose to be the head of a great institution of learning, 
and when, after eleven years of incessant combat, he laid 
aside his battered but unpi creed armor, he entered still wider 
fields and enlarged the scope of his labor and broadened his 
ever-expanding view of the needs and aspirations of the 
people. From the interests of a single university, he 
ascended to the idea of educating, first, the nation, and, sub- 
sequently, widely scattered races in the boundless field of 
commerce, in all those channels from which art, science, phil- 
osophy, manufactures, material growth, individual prosperity 
and national greatness must spring. He was a constructor of 
policies of far-reaching grasp. He developed interests which 
lay beyond or beside the knowledge and control of the ordi- 
nary man. His intellect was always awake and aggressive. 
If plans were brought to him for consideration, he saw at a 
glance their possibilities for usefulness and with unerring 
analysis reduced them to detail, and then, with that which 



36 

was the supreme gift of his genias, concentrated his enormous 
energy upon the necessary point and swept to victory by the 
power, persistency and directness of his attack. In this he 
resembled the greatest of military leaders or those heads of 
vast business enterprises where organization and executive 
talent are combined to command success. He understood 
men and methods. He planned well, he counseled well, he 
wrote well, he spoke well, he argued well, he persuaded well 
— and all these he did so persistently, never swerving from 
his purpose, that he succeeded brilliantly. We have all seen 
him accomplish wonderful results. He was as many-sided a 
man as has come to the front in the last sixty years. No 
other man of his native city was so much of a success in so 
many fields of labor. As a professional man he is a remarkable 
illustration of business enterprise, for no other man of the 
same relative professional or business prominence has ever 
been interested in the same degree or in the same way in 
public affairs. His career was a constant source of surprise, 
for the calling of a physician is not of a kind to awaken and 
start the mind in the direction of commerce, business or 
public interests. It would be far less surprising for a success- 
ful merchant or manufacturer or financier or lawyer to compass 
such ends. But the liberality of his education gave a broad 
base to his powers and his sympathies were free from those 
narrow and contracted views which cripple the usefulness of 
many a man of great mental vigor and great power for good 
through the lack of early mental training. 

" In his comprehensive citizenship, in his intense concen- 
tration of energy, in his rapid power of absorption, in his 
eagle glance, in his power to persuade and to control, we 
recognize, now that he is lost to us, one of the master spirits 
of our progressive age. He secured the wisest and best use 
of all his powers in professional and civil life, but alas, by 
the very intensity of his action, he glided too rapidly down 
the stream which no human effort can ascend. He who has 
fashioned great ideas into practical relations with the condi- 
tions of human existence has exercised the higher attributes 



37 

of human reason and is to be counted among the benefactors 
of his race. 

" He dreamed of a new Philadelphia. It was not the his- 
toric city which most he loved — it was the city of the future 
— and who can doubt, who has read his address on Franklin, 
that there was in his character many of the qualities which 
belonged to the most practical and far-seeing of Americans ? 
He dreamed of a city greater than any which Penn had 
planned, with nobler charities and vaster public works than 
Franklin had fancied — a city richer in hospitals, in schools, 
in institutions of learning, in libraries, in art, in commerce 
and in public works, of which the Free Library, the Com- 
mercial Museums, the University and a pure water supply 
were but expressions, a city uniting in the aggregate all that 
was powerful and instructive in spiritual or material life— a 
city which should propel by the powerful throbbing of its 
heart to the extremities of the Eepublic the life-blood of true 
national greatness. He surveyed the magDificent achieve- 
ments of the past ; he studied the inexhaustible resources of 
the present, needing but free avenues to make them service- 
able to man, and a wave of enthusiasm as of a mighty river 
rushing to the sea swept over him as the vision of an impe- 
rial future opened to his gaze. No sullenness, no selfishness, 
no self-seeking restrained him or bound his powers in irons. 
Into the comprehensive schemes of far-sighted men he 
entered w^ith the ease of one accustomed to plans of magni- 
tude, impatient and intent. Burning with a peculiar ardor 
all his own, be drove the powers of his mind as he drove his 
horses through the streets, swifter in movement than other 
men, always an arrow's flight in advance, and controlled by 
the dominant thoughts which ruled him and made him rest- 
less of delay. On the Mayor, on Councils, on private citi- 
zens, nay, on Presidents and their Cabinets and Congresses 
he cast his spell, converting that which was local into that 
which was national and might become international. Thus 
he toiled by day and far into the night, and often greeted 
with sleepless eyes the rising sun. To-monow and to-morrow 



38 

and to-morrow became with him to-day, to-day, to-day. No 
fog or darkness obscured his purpose, no chill of ambition 
froze his heart, no palsy of politics struck down his arm, no 
fatigue impeded his pen, no multiplicity of pursuits enfeebled 
his voice ; late and early, early and late he toiled, until the 
whole man, mind and body, became a rotary engine driving 
innumerable belts and shafts until all about him moved. 

" When I view Dr. Pepper straining himself with almost 
saperhuman strength to roll back the obstacles which ignor- 
ance, indifference, sloth and prejudice placed in his path 
until his heart burst in the effort and he dropped on the scene 
of his toil, I thiok ot young Theseus tugging at the rock 
which covered the sword of victory, and I see through the- 
cracked earth the golden- hil ted weapon and the sandals with 
which we may follow in his footsteps and conquer in our 
turn. May I not, in the name of our fourteen thousand 
alumni, to whose consolidation in one general association Dr. 
Pepper gave so generously of his time and means, breathe the- 
prayer that some portion of his indomitable spirit may in- 
spire our labors, and that we, as citizens, as we traverse our 
ample territory and behold our enjoyment of all civil and 
religious blessings, our busy factories and productive indus- 
tries, our fair seat of learning, crowning our thriving capital, 
our free, happy and prosperous people, our noble waters 
where our city sits enthroned, ma}^ be quickened anew in 
our efforts for her welfare, and that, as we press forward to 
the goal, an escape from great perils may be found for her,, 
and for all of us in the future, as it has been in the past." 



Address on behalf of the American Philosophical- 
Society, BY THE Hon. Frederick Fraley. 

" It is fitting that the American Philosophical Society 
should participate in services that shall record the character, 
work and worth of Dr. William Pepper. The members of 
the medical profession have always occupied prominent places 
on its roll ; and the President of the ancient Philosophical 



39 

Society, organized by Benjamin Franklin, in 1743, was Dr. 
Thomas Bond, Dr. Franklin declaring that he, himself, could 
be of more use to the Society as its Secretary. 

" When our Society was established under its present name 
in 1769, by the fusion of the two older bodies. Dr. Franklin 
was chosen its President, and the list of members then asso- 
ciated bears the names of prominent physicians. 

" Under the Constitution of 1769, five Committees were 
provided for, \mder which the ' Promoting of Useful Knowl- 
edge ' was made the work of the Society ; and the second of 
these Committees was to labor for medicine and anatomy. 

" Let us see how this has been for the last century. Dr. 
Franklin died in 1790, being succeeded by David Eitten- 
house ; Dr. Caspar Wistar, who had been elected to mem- 
bership in 1787, became one of the Vice-Presidents in 1795, 
continuing to hold that office until 1815, when he was chosen 
President, as the successor of Thomas Jefferson. 

" Thirteen Presidents have served since the death of Dr. 
Franklin, and of these, five, namely, Drs. Caspar Wistar, 
Nathaniel Chapman, Kobert M. Patterson, Franklin Bache 
and Greorge B. Wood have worthily represented the medical 
profession. 

" I may now pay my tribute of affection and respect to Dr. 
William Pepper. His grandfather and my father were 
attached friends for many years, and I numbered among my 
valued friends his father, also a member of the Philosophical 
Society, who died in 1864, holding the Chair of Theory and 
Practice of Medicine in the University, the same high 
office which was filled by the distinguished man whose death 
we are now mourning. Therefore, knowing William Pepper 
from his youth to the day of his death, I had abundant 
opportunity for learning how amply he was endowed for 
organizing and successfully prosecuting the objects outside of 
the profession, to which he devoted so much successful and 
persistent labor. How truthful were the words Provost Har- 
rison has said of Dr. Pepper, that ' at fifty-six he has lived 
his fourscore years.' 



40 

" Elected a member of the American Philosopliical Society 
in July, 1870, he always held himself ready to fulfil any 
appointment confided to him, and in 1896 he was chosen 
one of the Yice-Presidents. 

" He worked faithfully during the day, and when the night 
came was fully entitled to rest from his labors." 



Address on behalf of the Commercial Museums of 
Philadelphia, by Prof. "William P. Wilson, Ph.D. 

" Dr. Pepper was a man of great diversity of character and 
rare attainments. He lived and was active to the extreme 
in two different ways. 

" The one was his professional life, which grew out of the 
training which he gave himself and the profession which he 
had chosen. It included his routine medical practice, his 
daily visits to the University Hospital, where he was watched 
for and waited for by many patients, his consultations ar- 
ranged for him by many physicians, and his regular lectures 
and teaching to the medical students in the University, with 
frequent addresses before medical societies and the prepara- 
tion of articles and books in the special lines in which he was 
interested. 

' ' These activities formed the natural occupation and busi- 
ness of his life, and for an ordinary mortal would have filled 
it so full that nothing else could have come in to it. . For 
him, however, these were ail matters of course to be rapidly 
and well done. 

" But after all this came what I believe to have been for 
him the 'more pleasurable part of his work. It was the 
efforts and time which he gave to the public in many impor- 
tant directions. It was a second and distinct sphere of action 
which constituted the bulk of his efforts. 

" It is not my province here to speak of the value of his 
work to the educational interests of this city and the country 
in the building of a great University, or of his advisory 
character in looking after the sanitation, water-supply and 



41 

health of this great city, or of the magnificent enterprise and 
foresight which developed the finest free-library system on 
this continent, but to confine myself to his relations, inter- 
ests and labors in connection with the Philadelphia Museums. 

" It has been a matter of wonderment to many people of 
Philadelphia why Dr. Pepper should have developed such a 
deep and lasting interest in the establishment of the Com- 
mercial Museum. The philosophical reasons why he became 
interested in this institution may be easily traced by care- 
fully reviewing some of his leading tendencies of thought, 
looking over the various lines of work which he has accom- 
plished, and then examining the real character of the institu- 
tions which he was fostering. 

' ' Dr. Pepper was one of the foremost men of the country 
in planning schemes for public welfare and public education. 
His earnestness and enthusiasm in this direction were 
exemplified and took shape in building up the numerous 
departments of the University of Pennsylvania into the har- 
monious working organization of the great institution it now 
represents. 

" One of the grandest thoughts which he labored to realize 
was the centralizing of all educational institutions, the 
bringing together about the University the learned societies, 
the libraries and professional schools, thus forming a great 
centre, where you could, if interested in a given line, find 
all kindred and allied institutions near you. He would have 
been glad to see the art and industrial schools, the different 
libraries, the academies, the institutes, the learned societies 
of all kinds brought near together, all of them having some- 
thing in common, all of them designed to educate the indi- 
vidual, so that when you sought one for instruction, you 
could follow it out in the other adjacent institutions which 
might be touched by your inquiry, with the great saving of 
time and labor which such aggregation would give. 

" The great zeal with which Dr. Pepper supported these 
ideas for the good of the public was not in the slightest 
degree an expression founded on personal interest. It had 



42 

the broadest idea possible of public welfare and public good. 
This conception was a grand one, and will, half a century 
later, find its fulfillment in many directions in this and other 
cities. In discovering just why Dr. Pepper became so 
deeply interested in the Philadelphia Museums, we must not 
overlook the fact that he was already engaged in the estab- 
lishment of a great arch^ological and ethnological museum. 
He had conceived the idea of bringing together, under one 
roof, the materials which should show the development and 
progress of man from the remotest period to the present 
time. He desired to found and develop an institution which 
should show the history, development and environment of man. 

' ' Just as this was beginning to be realized and to take shape 
in substantial collections and buildings, there came the possi- 
bility of a rapid development of museum work along other 
but nearly related lines. The vast and varied amount of 
material secured from Chicago at the close of its Exposition 
was just coming into the city. This led to the conception of 
the establishment of a great group of museums, which should 
be centrally located near the University. The Arch^ologi- 
cal and Ethnological Museum could be one of such group. 
They could be established in, and surrounded by, a beautiful 
park for the public good. They should be so broad and far- 
reaching in their scope as to go beyond the past and present 
history of man and his conditions, and take in all animal and 
plant life, all the activities in which he is at present engaged, 
such as commerce and economics, a complete representation 
of all his educational attainments up to the present time, 
exemplified in pedagogy, as well as in all other interests aud 
surroundings which might together represent a brief synop- 
sis of the world' s history. 

" This ideal was to be gradually made actual and to take the 
form of a great group of museums something after the order 
of the South Kensington, only in reality of much greater 
magnitude. 

" All these ideas were actively ferfnenting and slowly taking 
shape in Dr. Pepper's mind while he was organizing and 



43 

arranging the early beginnings of the Museum of Archaeol- 
ogy and Palaeontology of the University. 

" Eight months after the close of the Chicago Exposition, 
when the writer was struggling under the immense mass of 
materials brought from that city to Philadelphia, and was 
striving to devise some appropriate form of organization for 
their care which might closely connect it with the city, it 
was Dr. Pepper who aided in formulating the ordinance 
which created the museums, and who saw to it that it gave 
power to create a group of museums of the broadest possible 
scope. A part of the ordinance reads as follows : 

'* ' Section i. The Select and Common Councils of the city of 
Philadelphia do ordain, that with a view of promoting the develop- 
ment of a great group of museums, general, scientific, economic, 
educational and commercial, the Councils of Philadelphia do 
hereby delegate the collections secured by Prof. W. P. Wilson 
from the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago, as the repre- 
sentative of the Mayor and the Councils of the city of Philadel- 
phia, in trust to a Board of Trustees, to be known as the Board of 
Trustees of the Philadelphia Museums, composed, etc' 

" To Dr. Pepper was due this broad idea of the establish- 
ment of a group of museums. 

" A cluster of educational institutions of all kinds grouped 
about the University of Pennsylvania, had been with him a 
central idea, on which much of his finest and most beneficial 
public and educational work had been done. 

" A grand group of museums, so systematized as to make 
visual the world's development and environment, represented 
for him only in another form the great educational institu- 
tions he had been striving to bring together. 

' ' This is the secret of Dr. Pepper's first intere'tet in this great 
museum scheme. 

" Under his energy, under his lavish use of means, under 
his persuasive power in developing the keenest interest in his 
plans among others, had already been taken the initial steps 
which resulted in the creation of the handsome buildings for 
the Museum of Science and Art, now nearly ready for occu- 
pancy. 



44 

*' In the new turn of affairs he now saw the opportunity for 
the rapid materializing of his plans in the establishing of a 
group of museums. 

'' The ordinance passed and approved by His Honor the 
Mayor, June the 15th, 1894, created a Board of Trustees for 
the organization of this group of museums. This Board 
immediately appointed Dr. Pepper its President. From this 
date begins his active work and great interest in this instita- 
tion. 

' * For many reasons the Commercial and Economic Mu- 
seum, which now finds a hpme, thanks to the liberality of 
the Pennsylvania Kailroad Company, in the old offices on 
Fourth street of that company, was the first to be established. 

"From this time on Dr. Pepper's energy and work knew 
no bounds in furthering this central idea of the development 
of a group of museums. He was always ready in an advisory 
capacity to listen to and consider any of the carefully laid 
plans for its advancement. His time was never too much 
occupied attentively to hear and weigh a proposition which 
would further this project. For over four years he never 
missed but one of the regular Board meetings, and never a 
single Executive Committee meeting called in the interest of 
this work. 

" But these meetings, which took place three times each 
month, scarcely figured in the time devoted to the museums. 
During the last year he visited its offices almost daily and 
was in conference with its Director almost nightly. For four 
years there never was a time when with one day's notice, and 
often les^, he was not ready to proceed to New York, Wash- 
ington or elsewhere in its interests. For four years he gave 
hours of his valuable time daily to the development of this 
work. For four years he labored with city, with State and 
with Government officials, receiving their cordial aid on every 
hand in building up this institution. 

*'The city, with confidence in the work, gave money to its 
support, ample lands for its buildings, and the cordial encour- 
agement of its officials. 



45 

" The State sanctioned it and supported tke work with its 
appropriation and the good-will of its chief executive. 

" The ISTational Government furthered the development of 
the museums through the aid of its Consular Service over 
the entire world, through the good- will and aid of the State 
Department, and finally stamped its existence and work with 
a national seal, through the opening and dedication of The 
Philadelphia Museums by the President of the United States. 

" To a man of Dr. Pepper's liberal education and cultiva- 
tion there were some things about The Philadelphia Mu- 
seums peculiarly attractive, that touched him on every side 
and were commensurate with the broadness of his training 
and outlook. It asked of him daily judgments on matters 
pertaining to foreign nations. It brought him frequently in 
contact with leading gentlemen from foreign countries. It 
led him to consider interesting questions of political economy 
and economics between our own and other Governments, 
which were interesting and refreshing. Although difficult 
points often in themselves, they gave him rest from the ardu- 
ous duties of his medical practice. 

" This new work, in considering the extension of our for- 
eign commerce and the promotion of our manufacturing 
interests, led him into discussions concerning our home and 
foreign policy with the Ministers of the Latin -American 
Kepublics, who were organized into an Honorary Diplomatic 
Board for the Museums ; brought him into contact with the 
representatives of the various foreign countries who came to 
examine and study the work in progress here ; placed him 
in communication with Committees from Congress, which 
were considering the questions we had set before them ; and 
frequently brought him before the Secretary of State and the 
President of the United States in presenting and urging the 
enlargement of the work of the Commercial Museum, the 
points it desired to carry, and what it stood ready to do in 
ordering and stimulating a new commeice between the United 
States and foreign countries. 

" No one possessed such quick perception or could present 



46 

such forcible arguments on these questions of international 
interest as he. Often what others studied for days and weeks, 
when presented to him seemed at once a corollary, the truth 
of which was self-evident with the saying. He saw clearly 
the value of the principles on which the institution was 
founded, and was fully interested in the problems which it 
sought to solve. He forcibly and in the most persuasive 
manner presented his convictions to others, carrying the 
points home with arguments so conclusive that the interests 
of the institution were always advanced and advancing under 
his directing hand. This quick perception, this great 
interest in new and broadening questions, made him the 
Museums' natural benefactor and promoter in all the earlier 
stages of their development. 

'•As presiding officer of the great International Congress 
held here last year, to which sixteen republics of Latin- 
America and two empires of Europe sent representatives. Dr. 
Pepper became known to these delegates, not as a physician, 
but as a sharp, quick, clear-headed, decisive, thinking, busi- 
ness man. They carried with them to their respective homes 
in Mexico, Central America, the Argentine Republic, Brazil, 
Venezuela, Chile, Peru, Colombia, and other countries, such 
profound respect and regard for the Chairman of our meetings, 
that upon tbe announcement of his death a continued suc- 
cession of condoling letters and official documents expressing 
sympathy and sorrow at his untimely death have been sent to 
us from private individuals, from Chambers of Commerce and 
public institutions all over Latin- America from Mexico to 
the Argentine Republic. Twenty- three communications from 
Chambers of Commerce, societies and members of our For- 
eign Advisory Board have been received from Mexico alone. 

"One of the most noted of these meetings convened in 
honor and in memxory of Dr. Pepper was held in the city of 
Mexico, and was presided over by President Diaz himself, 
who had long been a personal friend. This meeting was held 
in the Chamber of Deputies. The decorations were striking ; 
Mexican and American flags were artistically draped together. 



47 

The different Cabinet officers A\rere present ; also the Governor 
of the Federal District and of other States ; the foreign Min- 
isters ; the Consuls from the United States and other conn - 
tries ; noted physicians throughout alf Mexico came to attend 
the meeting, especially those who had served in Committees 
and were personally known to Dr. Pepper through his associa- 
tion as first President of the Pan-American Medical Congress 
of 1893, and also those who had been present at the last 
meeting of this Congress in the city of Mexico, when Dr. 
Pepper wa,s the special and honored guest of the occasion. 
The first speech of the meeting was from Minister Eomero, 
who stated in the course of his remarks : ' I had the good 
fortune to know Dr. Pepper personally in his own country, 
and had an opportunity of appreciating his conspicuous 
merits. I did not know him in his capacity as a physician, 
high as were his attainments in that province, but in his 
capacity as an altruist, determined to do all the good that he 
could to his fellow-men, and devoting his time to beneficent 
works, to which he applied his own fortune without any 
other recompense than the satisfaction that comes from the 
consciousness of. doing good.' 

" Other speeches were made by noted physicians and cele- 
brated men from many parts of Mexico. The assemblage 
was the most noted one that had been brought together for 
many years in that interesting capital. The proceedings and 
ceremonies were grand and impressive. They were such as 
might have paid tribute to an emperor. 

' ' I have made special mention of this meeting because it 
not alone showed the impression that had been made upon 
the Mexican people by the individuality of Dr. Pepper, but 
the impress of his character which had gone broadcast over 
all Latin- America. 

" A very important side of Dr. Pepper's life and character, 
illustrated constantly in his museum work, and one which 
contributed greatly to its success in all his numerous under- 
takings, was his rare power of bringing men together who 
held opposite opinions and harmonizing their different inter- 



48 

ests for the public good. He took part in nothing in which 
he did not lead. Few men in any walk of life possessed equal 
executiNre ability. He could put more work through in a 
given time than half a dozen ordinary men. His executive 
ability was so prominent in every phase of his work that the 
various boards of which he was a member, and the Committees 
in which he was active, always waited for him to do the 
needed thing in the right way and at the right time, for then 
it was always well done — often better done with the few 
moments' consideration which he gave it than in the hours of 
study which others could have devoted to it. It was left to 
him to formulate most of the resolutions, and to propose most 
of the methods and work of all the projects and meetings in 
which he took a part. 

' ' Another extremely prominent characteristic of his life 
Avork was that he could fraternize and work with any one. 
If he personally disliked those with whom it was necessary 
for him to work, they never knew it, providing the work was 
well done. They received equal praise with others, where it 
was deserved, and the very best energy drawn from them. 
He was not easily prejudiced against any one, and was not 
likely to allow his own actions to be influenced by what some 
one else had said until he himself had some internal, con- 
vincing evidence ; and even then, if his plans required con- 
tinued association with, and labor from, a given person, his 
approach and relations might still remain unchanged, 

' ' In pushing any public work to completion he was restive 
to the last degree until every point had been touched, everj 
vantage ground taken, every method used, every person con- 
vinced, every one brought in line with the general object for 
which he was laboring. If at the eleventh hour anything 
could be thought of which had not been done to further the 
objects of the thing in hand, no labor was too great, no 
effort too arduous for him to undertake and push with fresh 
vigor and activity, although it might be in the small hours 
of the morning, and require the writing of a dozen letters 
with his own hand. 



49 

' ' Another characteristic and a very prominent trait was 
the absolute and utter lack in all of his public work oi ever 
looking for anything for himself. Xo one can ever say, who 
has worked with Dr. Pepper in any one of his many public 
undertakings, that he ever planned a single thing or event to 
give himself benefit, either in money, credit for the work 
done, or public applause, or praise, or that for a moment he 
ever put himself before the public in order that any advan- 
tage whatsoever should come to him. His great reward in 
all of his work seemed to be the love of doing it, and ihe 
satisfaction he felt in that the public were better and were 
th« beneficiaries of his work. 

'' I believe it may safely be estimated that he devoted fully 
two-thirds of his complete time to public work. When his 
labors are fully kaown and the objects and aims he was striv- 
ing after for the general good of Philadelphia and the coun- 
try at large are valued as they should be, I believe he will 
be counted one of the few great benefactors of Philadelphia." 



Address ox behalf of the Free Libraries of Phila- 
delphia, BY Mr. Johx Thomson. 

' ' At this advanced stage of the proceedings I am sure 
that I shall best meet your wishes and best express my 
appreciation of the honor shown me in selecting me to repre- 
sent the Board of Trustees of the Free Library of Phila- 
delphia on this occasion by confining myself to a very few 
remarks. 

" You have heard from previous speakers much of the 
verv remarkable man in honor of whose memory we are 
gathered together this evening, and yet I think that there is 
a characteristic in his work which is worthy of additional 
enforcement. You have heard of his untiring energy in 
promoting great works, such as the development of the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania, the creation of the Commercial 
Museums, and other institutions through whose influence the 
general community could be benefited. It was, however, 



50 

distinctly characteristic of him whose premature loss we so 
deplore, that not only great movements, but small move- 
ments were undertaken and fostered by him with equal 
energy, resolution and perseverance. The thought that ruled 
Dr. Pepper was not, ' Is this a big and dignified matter ? ' 
but rather, ' Is this a plan which will enhance the devel- 
opment of the general community of the city in which I 
live ?' Many of the speakers and even more of those now 
gathered together have been able to think and speak 
of Dr. Pepper from a life -long knowledge. That is not 
my case ! I knew him only during the comparatively 
short period of some seven years, and it was the way in 
which he undertook and carried on the works in which he 
allowed me to cooperate that enables me to speak of the 
characteristic at which I have hinted. In January of 1893, 
an exhibition of rare books, fine bindings and specimens of 
early printing was given in the rooms of the Pennsylvania 
Academy of the Fine Arts. Those -who had the management 
of it had gathered together examples of the treasures snugly 
hidden in over twenty of the libraries of collectors of this 
city, and instantly found themselves in the congenial atmos- 
phere of a region of book-lovers. It required no longer than 
some twenty minutes' talk with Dr. Pepper a day or two later, 
and those twenty minutes seized by him from the midst of his 
busy office hours, when his attention was alternately occupied 
with professional cares. University progress and the develop- 
ment of the manifold schemes in which he was interested, to 
realize that one more useful work could be fostered. Unwill- 
ing to burden himself with an additional presidency, he yet 
cheerfully assumed the office of President of the Philobiblon 
Club as soon as he saw that another movement which could 
benefit the citizens could be promoted and set forward on a 
prosperous career through his aid. Nothing was clearer to 
Dr. Pepper's mind than that anything which would bring 
people and books closer together must be good. He had 
shown this in the active steps he had taken to develop the 
libraries of many Philadelphia institutions. No man living 



51 

realized more fully than lie the untold value, at the pres- 
ent period of the century, of bringing people and books 
into increased union. It was this very activity that had led 
him to seek at the hands of his uncle, Mr. George S. Pepper, 
financial aid for the promotion of the existing libraries of 
the city. Every testator will form his own decision as to 
what institutions he will benefit and what institutions he will 
decline to assist, but it is impossible to overlook the influence 
of the nephew upon the uncle when you find that under the 
will of the latter, in addition to the nearl}^ $250,000 be- 
queathed to the Free Library, liberal bequests were made to 
the Art, the Union League, the Kittenhouse and the Phila- 
delphia Clubs, as well as to the Philadelphia, Mercantile 
and Apprentices' Libraries, for the purpose of enabling those 
institutions to establish or increase the libraries belonging to 
those several institutions. Ko one in the city of Philadelphia 
realized more fully, than Dr. Pepper, the splendid work 
that has been done by the long- established and highly appre- 
ciated libraries of the city. He knew and could appreciate 
the splendid collections in private houses gathered together 
by experts and specialists. He could enjoy, as well as. any 
one, the library which contained specimens of all matters that 
make libraries valuable or the library which was confined 
mainly to a special line of study. He was unfailing in his 
generous tribute of praise to the great work accomplished by 
the old Philadelphia Library Company, the 'mother of all 
subscription libraries in America.' He recognized the long 
and valuable service rendered to the city by the Mercantile 
Library, the invaluable work accomplished by the Appren- 
tices' Library, and the useful aid afforded to the citizens of 
Philadelphia by the City Institute and the other numerous in- 
stitutional libraries scattered up and down through the length 
and breadth of the city. His knowledge and appreciation of 
what these institutions had accomphshed only enforced in his 
mind the pregnancy of the phrase he so often used, 'Library 
talk is in the air.' He appreciated with remarkable foresight 
that much as these libraries had accomplished and were con- 



52 

tinuing to effect, a part only of the work tlaat was necessary to 
be done had been practically undertaken. If books are good 
for the rich and the middle class, they are a necessity for 
those who are unable to buy many volumes for themselves. 
* All prosperity,' he would cry, ' to the institutions that are 
on foot, but what is wanted is a People's Library.' ' What 
is a necessit}^, is a library in which every man, woman or 
child of proper age can have as ready access to its books as 
they can have to the few volumes stored upon the shelves of 
their own homes.' It is such an institution that has been 
established in your centre, and proud indeed the city may be 
of the Free Library of Philadelphia. Perhaps the most 
marked characteristic of Dr. Pepper was that, great as was 
his own enthusiasm, untiring as his labor would be, he could 
always enthuse those who worked with him in his own 
spirit. It is unnecessary to-night to speak of the delays that 
arose in launching the Free Library. Qaestions were raised 
whether the Free Library to be established should be an 
entirely new corporation or an offshoot of one of the exist- 
ing libraries of the city. Whilst these questions were before 
the Law Courts, no one in the city rejoiced more than did Dr. 
Pepper that the Free Library movement was exhibited to 
the eyes of the people of the city in a practical form by the 
opening of what is now known as the Wagner Institute 
Branch. This proved an unexpected and extraordinar7 object 
lesson as to the value of a Free Library. Through the 
courtesy of the Board of Management of that institution, the 
first Branch of the Free Library was opened under their 
hospitable roof in October, 1892, just six short years ago. 
Its success was greater than had been anticipated by the most 
enthusiastic believer in the value of a Free Library. The 
system grew like the tendrils of a vine, and by April, 189-1, 
four such Branches had been opened in various parts of the 
citv. The moment the litio^ation was closed the writer was 
authorized to seek help from the Public Buildings Commis- 
sion, who most generously gave to the Board of Trustees the 
temporary use of some rooms in the City Hall. The accom- 



53 

modation so courteously accorded was altogether insufficient, 
and one of the most fortunate events in the history of the 
Free Library was when the Trustees ascertained that the old 
Concert Hall could be obtained for Library purposes, and the 
work was moved from the City Hall to its present quarters. 

" And just at this point comes an illustration of how Dr. 
Pepper could create, in the minds of those with whom he 
worked or with whom he pleaded for help, the same spirit 
that was displayed by himself. If the Free Library was to 
be worth establishing and maintaining, it was indispensable 
that it should be a People's Library. To become this it 
must be placed under the protection of the people. In other 
words, it must be administered on as free and open a prin- 
ciple as are public museums, public parks and other similar 
institutions. The careful Avay in which the Library has been 
administered and used by the public, shows that the people 
tools: this institution to its heart, that the people appreciated 
it, and that the people have used it well. Could it in any 
other way have taken the first position of any library in the 
world for the number of books it circulates every year ? To 
maintain it the people's representatives had to appropriate con- 
siderable, but necessary, annual sums if it was to be carried 
on, in as thorough a manner, as it had been started. Who can 
examine the way in which the City Councils have answered 
the appeal made to them without acknowledging that they 
have responded nobly to the call ? Appropriations have 
been made in a generous and willing spirit. The institu- 
tion is a prosperous one, and was perhaps, in the later years 
of Dr. Pepper's life, as dear to his heart as the Commercial 
Museums or any work with which he had ever associated 
himself. Dr. Pepper was untiring in his efforts to lay before 
the members of Councils his views as to the work that a Free 
Library could accomplish. Hand in hand, the late President 
of the Library and our City Councils have labored together 
to maintain and advance the best interests of the institution. 

" It would be tedious to relate the interest Dr. Pepper 
took in the legislation successfully obtained in 1895, in order 



54 

to strengthen the hands of the city in maintaining the 
Librarv. He recoo;nized that Pennsylvania was, with the 
exception of one other State, the only one in the Union 
which had no proper legislation. He caused the need for 
legislation to be brought to the attention of the State Legis- 
lature, and the Act of 1895 was passed, with only two dissent- 
ing voices in the two houses. How he labored and how 
anxious he was about the matter no one knows as thoroughly 
as I do nor can his zealous work be overstated. 

" That his spirit of enthusiasm has spread is shown by 
the liberal gifts that have begun to be bestowed on the Li- 
brary. In aid of the bequest of Mr. George S. Pepper, others 
have been received from Eobert G. White, Jonathan Livezey, 
George B. Eoberts, Charles J. Harrah, the George W, Blabon 
Co., the Link Belt Co., the Messrs. William Cramp & Sons, 
and a munificent donation of the value of $1,000,000 from 
Mr. Peter A. B. Widener. The members of Councils recog- 
nize the importance of protecting the many valuable gifts 
of books and the splendid collection of art works which are 
being gradually accumulated in the Free Library, and much 
may be hoped for, in the way of advancing the Library, in 
the very near future. 

* ' Ladies and gentlemen, all honor to the memory of Dr. 
Pepper — how his work has been appreciated outside the limits 
of the city we have just heard — but perhaps the heartiest 
tribute of honor to his name and labors is the quiet but 
earnest tribute of affectionate respect that greets our ears 
when what he has done is discussed, or when a sorrowful 
regret is heard on every side that he was so early called from 
his labors. Few can hope to achieve as much as he did, 
but none can be found who will withhold the declaration that 
his labors for the citizens of Philadelphia were unselfish, 
unstinted and fraught with untold benefits to the generations 
to come. 

" May his memory be ever kept green in each and every 
one of our hearts. ' ' 



55 

Address on behalf of the City of Philadelphia, by 
His Honor, Mayor Chasles F. Warwick. 

" It is almost impossible to bene\re tliat Dr. Pepper, witli 
his unwearied activity and indomitable energy, had to suc- 
camb so quickly to the ruthless destroyer. 

" Although he frequently spoke of death, it was not with 
fear, except that the summons might come before his work 
was finished. 

" liis loss is irreparable, for he had reached that point in 
his career when so much depended upon his experience, his 
influence, his personal direction, his accurate knowledge of 
requirements and his ceaseless and untiring energy, that it 
will be impossible to find a successor who will fill exactly the 
conditions or adequately meet the demands — one who will be 
able to take up all the threads where he dropped them and 
weave them into a finished fabric. 

" It was my privilege during the past four years to be 
brought into almost daily communication with him, and I 
had every opportunity to stud}^, and to become familiar with, 
his qualities of mind and heart. 

' ' He was without question strongly intellectual. Although 
his training had been purely scientific, he was withal most 
practical ; he could not only master details, but had a thorough 
comprehension of the whole ; he possessed a keen perception 
and sound judgment ; he had a genius for administration and 
a marvelous capacity for work ; he never tired ; while others 
slept, he toiled. He Avas a good judge of men, he seemed 
to read them by intuition ; he was not given to flattery ; he 
went straight to the point, and yet he had the power of per- 
suasion and could induce active cooperation. In a contest, 
however, he was never overconfident, although optimistic 
and sanguine by temperament ; he was too wise to neglect 
taking every precaution to provide against defeat. This is 
the wisdom that comes with experience in dealing with men. 
He possessed great resolution ; at all times he was conscious 
of his power and confident of his ability to accomplish what 



56 

he set out to perform. No enterprise was too great for him 
to undertake, if he could see, as the result of his work, the 
advancement of the city's interests or the interests of those 
institutions in whose welfare he was so deeply concerned. 

*' He believed in his native city, and that her future glory 
depended upon the love, loyalty and efforts of her children. 
He felt, using the language of St. Paul, that he was ' a citi- 
zen of no mean city.' 

" He fully appreciated the real worth of Philadelphia, and 
knew that her possibilities were great ; he did not spend his 
time in apologizing for her so-called ' shortcomings.' He had 
a creative genius ; he built up while others were tearing 
down. 

' ' He stood not in idleness at the street coriiers and loudly 
complained, and therein he radically differed from so many 
people who, if we may be allowed to judge from their con- 
duct, act as if they thought their only civic duty is to find 
fault. He was too busy to waste his time in this way, but 
gave his best years and the noblest efforts of his life to 
advance the welfare and to add to the fame of his beloved 
city. 

' ' Obstacles thrown in his way only gave new energy to his 
efforts, and put fresh courage in his soul. 

" A half-score of men with the civic pride and public spirit 
that characterized Dr. Pepper could make our city the art, 
scientific and intellectual centre of this country. 

' '■ His motives were often misunderstood and misconstrued, 
but those who labored with him know that there was an 
utter abnegation of self, as he pressed forward in his public 
work. He was philosophical under defeat, and most patient 
under disappointment and provocation. In all my intercourse 
with him in the past four years, I never heard him speak 
unkindly of any one. He had enemies with cutting tongues 
as such men always have, but ' censure,' Dean Swift says, ' is 
the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.' 

" He never found time to personally abuse those who 
opposed him ; he could not be diverted from the great enter- 



57 

prises lie had in hand by consuming his valuable time in 
paying attention to the unjust and unreasonable criticism of 
those who misunderstood his motives. He rose above a con- 
tention so useless, as he pushed forward on his way to great 
results; he trusted to the future to do him justice, and it will. 

' ' The ' Loan Bill ' was a matter in which he took the 
deepest interest, for he saw in it the means of accomplishing 
much for our city. 

" For the success of this measure he worked most indus- 
triously, the opposition, much of it born of spite, envy, jeal- 
ousy, and at times governed by the most sordid motives, 
resorted to every artifice to postpone the benefits to result 
from the passage of the bill, yet he fought on ; he was 
always hopeful ; under the most trying circumstances he 
never despaired nor surrendered. 

" Though he did not live long enough to see his efforts ia 
this particular direction entirely successful, yet he helped to 
sow the seed that will enable others in time to reap the 
harvest and claim the glory. 

" Night and day he labored without ceasing ; so swiftly did 
he run, that he fell before he reached the goal. 

" He gave his time, his talents, his wealth, and sacrificed 
his life to the cause of the public good. The city mourns 
his loss. The University, the Commercial Museums, the 
Free Library, and a score of institutions and learned societies 
in which he was interested will greatly miss him. 

" If we desire to do honor to his memory, it will be for us 
who labored with him to continue to a successful conclusion 
the public measures he inaugurated but left imfinished. 

" I know no private citizen in this generation who has 
made so deep an impression upon the life and material devel- 
opment of our city as Dr. William Pepper. 

" Such an example serves as an impetus to induce earnest 
participation in public affairs on the part of all our citizens.. 

" In the midst of the duties of a most active practice and a 
most exacting profession, he found time to give attention to 
public matters, and to urge forward in every way the pros- 



58 

perity of his native city. Would it be out of place at this 
time to suggest, that a monument should be erected to his 
memory in the immediate vicinity of the City Hall ? Such 
a life deserves such an honor. 

1 " His motto was, ' I must work while it is day, the night 
cometh when no man can work.' Alas ! the shadows of night 
closed iu too soon. 

'•' I pay this simple tribute as his friend, but acting in my 
representative capacity for the city he so dearly loved, and 
whose prosperity he so materially advanced, I come to-night 
to lay upon his bier the crown of civic honor. May I not 
truthfully say, that in his time he was the first among all the 
sons of this great city ?" 



Mexico's Tribute 



TO THE MEMORY OF 



William Pepper. 



On the evening of Monday, September 12, 1898, a meeting in 
memory of Dr. Pepper was held in the City of Mexico. President 
Diaz presided, many officials in high station were present, and the 
Medical and Scientific societies of Mexico attended in a body. The 
late Mexican Minister to the United States, Matias Komero, was 
one of the speakers. The following accounts of this notable gath- 
ering are taken, in substance, from two newspapers — The Mexican 
Herald and The Two Republics— both, published in the City of 
Mexico. 



(59) 



61 



Mexico's President and Medical Faculty Pay a 
Tribute to the Physician and Philanthropist. 

The memorial exercises in honor of Dr. William Pepper, 
organized bj Drs. La vista, Liceaga and Carmen y Valle, who 
were friends of the deceased and highly regarded him, took 
place last night in the Chamber of Deputies. 

The main hall of the chamber had been suitably adorned 
for the occasion. The decorations were striking and in excel- 
lent taste. A huge Mexican Qag of silk hung from the top 
of the wall behind the dais. It was looped on one side by a 
band of black crape, and a medallion painted with the em- 
blems of medicine, viz., the cup and snake. After reaching 
the ground, the flag was caught up again upon the side wall. 
This flag was draped on one side of an allegorical fresco at 
the extremity of the Congress Hall. On the other side, stand- 
ing against the wall, was a trophy of flags, Mexican and 
American, artistically grouped. Below the fresco was a 
tablet representing one side of a sarcophagus with the name 
" W. Pepper " in large gilt letters. 

At each corner of the raised platform in front and behind 
Avas an obelisk covered with black cloth and a palm branch 
and wreath in front. 

The rostrum at which the President and party sat was 
draped in amber cloth with black crape trimmings. 

Below this rostrum and all over the platform potted plants 
were arranged in profusion, the effect of the fan- palms and 
other gracefal foliage of the tropics standing out against the * 
amber drapery and the silken folds of the flags of both coun- 
tries being very striking. 

The frescoes on the walls on either side of the raised plat- 
form Avere covered with panneoMX of black cloth with palm 
branches and wi-eaths placed against them. There were also 
representations of two more sides of the sarcophagus, one 
against each side Avail, corresponding Avith that containing 
the name of ' ' W. Pepper ' ' in the rear. These tablets were 
inscribed Avith the Avords " Gomision Ejecutiva del ^o. C. M. 



62 

F, J.., 1896''' (Executive Committee of the Second Pan- 
American Medical Congress, 1896), and ^^ El Profesorado 
Medico de la Republica Mexicana^ 1898''^ (Corps of Medical 
Professors of the Mexican Eepnblic, 1898). 

This completed the decoration of the portion of the hall 
corresponding to the raised platform. 

In the rest of the hall the boxes and rows of seats were 
draped with amber and black and torches burnt along the 
balustrades between the tiers of chairs. 

The hall was illuminated with arc lamps shaded with globes 
of green glass and with a profusion of candles in the great 
central chandelier. 

President Diaz appeared in the hall with his usual prompti- 
tude at seven P.M. He was received with military honors 
and the renderiug of the national anthem. He was escorted 
to the central seat on the rostrum. On his right was seated 
Hon. Joaquin Baranda, Minister of Justice and Education, 
and on his left Hon. Kafael Kebollar, Governor of the 
Federal District. At a lower desk on the right was seated 
Dr. Rafael La vista, and on the President's left Dr. Eduardo 
Liceaga. 

The orchestra, led by Prof. Luis G. Saloma, and with 
Messrs. Felix Rocha, Ignacio del Angel and Pedro Yaldes, 
as first violinists, besides over thirty other musicians, ren- 
dered Svendsen's " Andante Sostenuto," after which Hon. 
Matias Romero, Mexican minister to the United States, 
.advanced to the front of the platform to the left of the Presi- 
'vdent and spoke as follows : 

MR. Romero's speech. 

'''■Mr. President^ Ladies and Gentlemen: — The desire of 
paying a sincere though feeble tribute to the distinguished 
merit of a man who was noted for the high personal traits 
that adorned his character and for the good which he did to 
his fellow-men during his passage through this life, and who 
was, moreover, a sincere friend of our country, causes me to 
emerge for an instant from the retirement into which I have 



63 

been forced hj the most severe bereavement that can befall 
a man. 

" I had the good fortune to know Dr. William Pepper 
personally in his own country, and an opportunity of appre- 
ciating his conspicuous merits. Unlike the other speakers 
who will deliver his panegyric to-night, I did not know him 
in his capacity as a physician, high as were his attainments 
in that province, but in his capacity as an altruist, deter- 
mined to do all the good that he could to his fellow-men and 
devoting his time to beneficent works to which he applied 
his own fortune without any other recompense than the satis- 
faction that comes from the consciousness of doing good. 
He also availed himself of the advantageous position which 
he occupied in the United States to secure the funds necessary 
to carry out great and beneficial undertakings, and in a coun- 
try where there are so many philanthropists, he always suc- 
ceeded. 

" Dr. William Pepper was one of those luminous bodies 
that visit our planet in human form to do good to their 
fellows, to serve as an example for present and future gener- 
ations, to elevate and improve the condition of humanity. 

" I will not attempt, nor would it be possible, to give at this 
moment even a summarized biographical sketch of Dr. 
Pepper, and all that I propose to do is to relate briefly the 
circumstances under which I made his acquaintance, circum- 
stances that brought the most admirable features of his char- 
acter into' relief. 

" Desiring to promote the trade of the United States with 
the other nations of the American continent, he conceived 
the project of establishing at Philadelphia, his native city, a 
commercial museum or museums for the exhibition of sam- 
ples of the natural and manufactured products of each of 
the republics of America, so that the manufacturers of his own 
country, if so desiring, might examine the raw material 
which we produce with a view to its employment for their 
manufactures. This was a colossal undertaking for a single 
individual to attack, involving, as it did, the necessity of a 



64 

large building, a staff of scientific employes, a considerable 
force of clerks and other adjuncts requiring heavy expendi- 
ture. The energy of Dr. Pepper was not daunted by these 
difficulties, and overcoming all of them he succeeded in estab- 
lishing the Commercial Museums, which were solemnly inaug- 
urated at Philadelphia, in the presence of the President of 
the United States of America, on June 3, 1897. 

" Dr. Pepper desired, for the better success of his under- 
taking, to secure the cooperation of the governments of the 
other nations of America, interested as they are also in such 
success, and as I was the senior diplomatic representative in 
Washington, he applied to me with a view to effecting 
arrangements to that end, and thus it was that I had the 
good fortune to make his acquaintance. He often came to 
Washington to confer with us, and we also, invited by him, 
went to Philadelphia on several occasions to visit the Mu- 
seums and also to take part in their dedication, at which cere- 
mony I, on behalf of the Latin- American diplomats, and of 
the Diplomatic Committee of the Museums, which he had 
organized, delivered an address. On December 11, 1897, the 
diplomatic representatives in question held a meeting at the 
Mexican legation at Washington which was the last that Dr. 
Pepper attended. 

" Before his death Dr. Pepper had succeeded in securing 
the funds necessary not only to sustain the Museum perma- 
nently, but also to build for it a suitable edifice at a cost of 
several millions of dollars. 

" I also had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with 
another of the good works of this good man, having a con- 
nection, like the former, with our country. There lives in 
Washington during the winter and in California during the 
summer, a distinguished lady, who not long ago visited this 
country, leaving behind her a luminous trail in the form of 
kindnesses done to persons in need, who delights in employ- 
ing her large fortune in foundiug colleges and in other useful 
undertakings having for their object the promotion of science 
and the good of mankind in general. All m}" hearers will 



65 

understand that I refer to Mrs. Pliebe A. Hearst. Dr. 
Pepper, who used to apply to this philanthropical lady for 
the funds necessary for his noble undertakings, arranged with 
her to send to Mexico a scientific commission to engage in 
archaeological and anthropological studies in some of the 
States of the republic, with a view to the advancement of 
.science, and, as is characteristic of people who do good for 
the sake of the satisfaction which they derive therefrom, and 
not for vain display, this fact would have been unknown to 
me, in spite of my personal acquaintance with both of the 
prime movers, had it not been for the necessity of obtaining 
the consent of the Mexican government to the sending of the 
commission, thus constraining them to communicate their 
plans to me. I believe that Mexico was not the only country 
to which they sent a commission for a like purpose. 

" I, therefore, regard as laudable the exercises held to-night 
for the purpose of paying a tribute to the memory of a man 
whose life was an honor to humanity." 

DR. PARR a' S SPEECH. 

Dr. Porfirio Parra, who was the next speaker, and who 
spoke on behalf of the College of Medicine, said in part : 

" Mr. President^ Ladies and Gentlemen: — What truth, 
what profound philosophy, what apt and picturesque simili- 
tude are contained in the tender and famous verses of the son 
of the Conde de Paredes, of the never-to-be-forgotten Jorge 
Maurique, the pride and ornament of the court of Don Juan 
the second of Castile : 

*' ' Nuestras vidas son los rios 

Que van a dar a la mar 

Que es el morir ! ' 

' ' The gifted poet of the end of the fifteenth century doubt- 
less was not aware that his simple couplets, penetrating as 
sorrow, vivid as memory, tender as the past and vague and 
melancholy as a troubled dream, would fly like a golden 
arrow through the ages and be repeated millions and milHons 
of times by those who speak the sonorous and beautiful Ian- 



66 

guage of Boscan and Garcilaso, worthy, according to Charles 
Y, of being the speech in which to speak to God." 

Dr. Parra then drew, after the style of the poet, a beauti- 
ful parallel between the life of man and the rivers of the 
earth, which, taking their rise in some lone spot far away in 
the hills, rush down the steep rocks to the level bed, now 
meandering between banks of flowers, now rushing through 
gullies and rocks and finally disappearing in the sea, which^ 
in the life of man, is represented by death. 

Dr. Parra spoke with encomium of the Anglo-Saxon race in 
America, and said that it had been the mother of great men, 
such as the venerable sage, Franklin, who by his simplicity, 
virtue, austere manners and varied attainments, had won the 
respect of the vain and frivolous court of Louis XVI, and 
caused Helvetius to dedicate to him a magnificent Latin 
hexameter in which the illustrious son of New England was 
praised for snatching the thunderbolt from Jove and the 
sceptre from tyrants ; such as the peerless Washington, in 
whose funeral oration Henry Lee, the Virginian, said with so 
much truth that he was the first in peace, the first in war, 
and the first in the hearts of his countrymen ; such as the 
illustrious Lincoln, who, for the good of human liberty, 
crushed the tremendous secession of the South and merited 
the simple, half-familiar yet enviable title of " Honest Abe.'^ 
The portion of this continent civilized by the heroic Spanish 
nation has produced figures as conspicuous as the great Boli- 
var, the illustrious Morelos and the immortal Juarez. 

Dr. Pepper belonged to the Saxon race, and displayed in 
his own person the indefatigable energy and the capacity for 
action which have made the colossal republic the wonder of 
the universe and a portent among nations. 

The speaker then went on to give a sketch of Pepper's 
career, paying special attention to his energy and untiring 
industry. To ask of Dr. Pepper to rest was to ask of him 
more than his life. Death alone could give him rest, and 
death overtook him at Pleasanton in the bosom of a hospit- 
able and affectionate home. 



67 

In conclmion, Dr. Parra said : 

" From the regions of the North where Niagara thunders 
to the southern shores bathed by the straits of Magellan, the 
•American continent puts on a garb of mourning rnd its 
inhabitants, whether they come from Anglo-Saxon ^tock or 
are descended from the Lusitanian or Iberian, address the 
deceased with accents of emotion, saying, ' May the earth b& 
hght to him for whom life was toil incessant.' " 

After a concerto of Beethoven on the piano by Miss- 
Eafaela Parra, with accompaniment of stringed instruments, 
Dr. Juan Jose Eamirez de Arellano made an address on be- 
half of the Board of Health. 

DK. EAMIEEZ DE AEELLANO'S ADDEESS 

Dr. Ramirez de Arellano said that while death was the- 
common fate of humanity, there was this great difference, 
that in the case of some men their names and memories were 
buried with them in the tomb, but while the mortal remains 
of the great, the good and the wise are consigned to earth, 
the fragrant memory of their great deeds and virtues lives 
forever. 

" Death is the abyss of nothingness for him who makes 
this earthly pilgrimage without leaving behind him even a 
trace of his passage, but for the man who by his virtue, his 
wisdom or his genius, rises above his fellows, death, in 
extinguishing the flicker of life, kindles the illuminating 
principle of the soul, which, divested of. matter, rises beauti- 
ful, great and sublime, and shows from on high its resplendent 
m.erits to the admiring gaze of mankind. For such an one 
the tomb is the first rung of the ladder of glory ; death is 
the beginning of life and of a life that never ends. Such 
was William Pepper. He was good, he was great, and he 
was wise, and thus his name will not perish, but will be 
written in letters of light in the book of those who die not^ 
but live to posterity." 

Dr. Eamirez went on to say that Dr. Pepper had died when 
his fame was at its height, " like Henry IV on the brightest. 



68 

lay of his reign, like Socrates in the midst of his disciples, 
his remains watered with the tears of those who loved him.'* 

The speaker said that the honor paid to Dr. Pepper's mem- 
ory was the greater in that those who paid it had not been 
close and devoted friends of the deceased or pupils grateful 
to him for his teachings. It was a tribute of homage due 
simply to his great worth, which had caused his name to be 
uttered with respect not only in his own country, but in dis- 
tant lands. Mexico, as a civilized country and a lover of 
progress, and recognizing, too, that true genius has no coun- 
try, but belongs to humanity, had hastened to do honor to 
the illustrious dead on account of the great things which he 
had accomplished in life. The honor had been made more 
•complete by the presence of the President of the republic. 

" Happy, a thousand times happy, is the savant who in 
'dying becomes entitled to such high and enviable distinction! 
Happy the man who, in descending into the tomb, puts on 
the robes of fame, and blessed now and always be William 
Pepper, whose death was the beginning of his immortality." 

The speech of Dr. Mendizabal came after a selection played 
•on the harmonium, with accompaniment of stringed instru- 
ments — " Ein Albumblatt," by Wagner. Dr. Mendizabal's 
•oration was the clou of the evening. 

DR. mendizabal's ADDEESS. 

Dr. Mendizabal said that he had accepted with pleasure the 
task of interpreting the sentiments of the National Academy 
of Medicine, at the velada organized in honor of the memorv 
of Dr. Pepper, " for, in the first place, we are all aware of 
the great merits of the deceased and Mexican doctors were 
under an obligation to him, which ought to be acknowl- 
edged. During our stay in the United States, at the time of 
the first Pan-American Medical Congress, we were the recipi- 
ents of a thousand courtesies and of a thousand marks of 
esteem at the hands of Dr. Pepper, attentions which signified 
to us a high mark of esteem and a delicate compliment to 
our country, for which we are deeply indebted to him. This, 



I 



69 

then, is the reason for the present public expression of grief, 
which has been organized here as a mark of reverence on the 
occasion of the death of the illustrious doctor, whose coun- 
try, like that of all other great men, embraced the \Yhole 
world. 

" The name of Pepper is deserving of the highest esteem. 
It is indeed difficult to find a man of his ability, of his 
knowledge and, above all, possessed of his activity. It was 
sufficient to see him ; to note his spacious forehead serene 
but deepened with premature furrows, the pale transparent 
skin so becoming a man devoting his whole time to study, 
the calm glance gentle but penetrating, as if he would read 
the soul of those who addressed him ; to hear the simple 
questions and short, thoughtful replies ; in order to under- 
stand what he was worth. 

" Pepper was a man of easy, simple and withal eloquent 
speech ; he was calm in his reflections, of great activity in 
his work, and his name itself was a title of nobility, for he 
was the son of a notable and eminent doctor also of Philadel- 
phia. He was not a vain man, but had the pride of a man 
who knew what he was worth. At the bottom, he was 
humble, and this explains why his great learning led him to 
sacrifice himself for the benefit of mankind. In tempera- 
ment he was manly and energetic, without which qualities no 
great virtues are possible, and in the absence of which no 
man can fulfill his high calling on earth. He was possessed 
of the great quality indispensable to the acquirement of all 
true knowledge, namely, he mistrusted what knowledge he 
really had. He belonged to that privileged group of "men of 
whom Pascal speaks, who, having learned by rote all that 
man is capable of knowing, realize that they know nothing. 
He received as his recompense the noblest reward that 
science has to bestow, namely, the pleasure of teaching 
those who do not know. He spoke with great correctness 
and propriety the language of Shakespeare, which was his 
mother tongue, as he did that of Horace, Moliere and Schil- 
ler. His great learning did not prevent his being communi- 



70 

cative and sociable and a most charming conversationalist. 
His manner was affable, and Ms actions and society were deli- 
cate and refined. 

" Those of my hearers who had the pleasure of knowing 
this great man personally will note that we have drawn no- 
imaginary character, but one that is true and lifelike — mere 
hintings of what he in reality was. 

" To better appreciate what this great man was worth, a 
visit to the famous University of Pennsylvania is all that is 
necessary. There will be seen the monument which testifies 
to his labors and industry daring his medical career of thirty- 
five years, and above all, during the last thirteen, in which 
period, to the benefit of the whole world, he filled the posi- 
tion of provost of this famous institution. A silent but elo- 
quent witness of the great services he rendered to mankind is 
the bronze statue erected to his memory in the library of the 
University. 

" When Pepper was placed in charge of the University in 
the year 1881, the building occupied an area of fifteen acres. 
It had nine hundred and ninety-one pupils, while the cost of 
maintenance did not exceed $90,000. When, in 1894, he 
ceased to direct the institution, it occupied fifty-three acres of 
land, had nearly three thousand pupils, while nearly three 
hundred thousand dollars were required to run it. During 
his period of ofiice the Wharton School was founded (which 
is the only one of its kind in the United States), the veteri- 
nary school, that of bacteriology, the department for medical 
instruction for women, those for physical education, archaeol- 
ogy and paleontology and laboratories for the study of 
chemistry and hygiene. 

" But his greatest creations were, without doubt, the 
Museum of Art and Science, the Commercial Museum and 
the great Free Library known as the Free Library of Phila- 
delphia. He soon had the good fortune to see his efforts 
crowned with success, for a few years after the Museum of 
Art and Science was established, the great discoveries of Dr. 
Hilprecht, in Babylon, where he had been sent by the 



71 

University, came to light — discoveries portentous in their 
nature, which have contributed in no small degree to enlarge 
our knowledge of the world as it existed three thousand years 
ago at least. The Museum is at the present time so vast that 
it has been compared with that of South Kensington, in 
London, and is even looked upon as the centre of science in 
the Western Hemisphere. 

" One of the greatest undertakings of Pepper was the 
convening of the first Pan-American Medical Congress, which 
took place in Washington, in September, 1893. Nobody 
but a man endowed with his brilliant reputation, vast influ- 
ence, indomitable energy, iron will and steadfast industry, in 
which he was ably seconded by Dr. Eeed, of Cincinnati, the 
Secretary of the Congress, could have brought the undertaking 
to a successful issue. Mexico, more than any other nation 
that sent representatives to this Congress, should honor the 
venerable memory of Dr. Pepper, as it was this Congress 
which enabled her to take the place she deserves among the 
cultured peoples of America. Mexico is a poor country, 
that has been torn by internecine strife, but, fortunately, a 
<iountry which, even in the midst of struggles and during 
the horrors of civil war, has never failed to produce eminent 
men Avho have kept alive the flame of science. Our lands 
lay in a state of waste, commerce was at a standstill, indus- 
tries were paralyzed, and our riches hidden away with the 
metals in the bosom of the earth. But science had always 
its apostles, and youth never stood in need of able mentors 
to lead it onward, apostles who were often martyrs, and who 
often received as the rev.^ard for their zeal, persecution, 
banishment, the prison and even death itself. 

" It is the rule of fate, written in indelible characters on 
every historical monument, that men, like nations, have to 
pass through long periods of anguish, before the day of 
recompense arrives, and that victory is the reward of fighting 
as happiness is the guerdon of long-suffering. Mexico has 
at length reached the stage of happiness and of victory. 
"The hour of its redemption came at length, and with it tran- 



72 

quillity and public confidence, which for the first time in many 
years have made their effects felt on Mexican soil, while the- 
unconditional protection which the government has afforded 
to everything tending to greatness, prosperity, credit and the 
good name of our fatherland, has brought about a full era of 
commercial, scientific, artistic and industrial revival. The 
result has been that this country, poor, forgotten and often 
most unjustly slandered, this nation, with neither fleets nor 
powerful armaments, with which to strike out on a career of 
conquest or expansion, as emblematic of power and strength, 
has entered fully on another field of battle, nobler, holier 
and more grandiose — namely, that of knowledge and intelli- 
gence. At times, with sacrifices which feeble spirits have 
not hesitated to describe as futile and sterile, the government 
has sent its gallant soldiers of peace to foreign countries, 
from which we have had the satisfaction of seeing them 
return triumphant, crowned with laurels which have been 
reverently deposited on the altars of the divinity which we 
call country. 

" The city of Philadelphia oives to Dr. Pepper the pros- 
perity and size which to-day distinguish it. If his advice had 
been followed colossal works would already have been under- 
taken there for filtering the water of the Schuylkill river. 
Water once mortiferous would now be converted into a 
healthy, salubrious, pure and delicious liquid. I repeat 
that I cannot and do not desire to do more than sketch 
the scientific and humanitarian personality of Dr. Pep- 
per, in order to justify the importance which the Mexican 
National Academy of Medicine, of which he was so dis- 
tinguished a member, has given to the lamentable event 
which has occasioned the irreparable loss of a man so emi- 
nent, so extraordinary and so learned as to be one of those 
referred to by Theophrastus when he says that they enjoy 
the great privilege of not being strangers even in the 
midst of strangers. In fact, the greatest men are those 
whose efforts on behalf of mankind have been the greatest. 
The whole world is the true mausoleum of these men, who 



live and Avill always live in tlie memory of coming genera- 
tions, so long as men continue to think and feel, so long as 
gratitude and justice continue to burn in the human breast 
and so long as men remember and understand the precious 
maxim of Mademoiselle Deluzzi, who said : ' Unfortunate 
is the man who does not smile before the cradle of the babe, 
and more unfortunate still the nations who do not weep over 
the tombs of their great.' " 

Dr. Mendizabal then entered on serious and philosophical 
reflections with respect to death, looking upon it as a natural 
effect and consequence of life itself, on account of the mys- 
teries which it enshrouds, as do so many other phenomena in 
nature, the inflexibility with which it wounds alike the great 
captains who have conquered worlds and glory by force of 
arms, as Cyrus, Xerxes, Hannibal, Csesar, Alexander and 
Napoleon ; as the great sages who have transformed the 
world by their thoughts, those men complete in their great- 
ness who have been able to retire from their meditations and 
consecrate themselves to the service of mankind, as did 
Archimedes, Galileo, Socrates, Plato, Lavoissier, Pasteur and 
Pepper. 

In speaking of the inexorability of death, he described 
briefly how it wounds alike the babe, the joy and enchant- 
ment of the home ; the dear wife, the sweet companion of 
life; the affectionate m.other, the model of self-abnegation 
and the fountain of tenderness, and the venerable old 
man, adorning the house with the laurels of veneration 
and respect. 

He said that, in reality, great men, like soldiers, never die 
prematurely ; in death, they lean against their own barricade 
and sleep the sleep of the just with that smile that illumi- 
nates the countenance and is the symbol of duty fulfilled, 
but humanity mourns their loss, for she stands in need of 
them. He cited the great thought of Solomon, ' ' Nihil 
permanet sub sole," which makes man sorrowful and reminds 
him at each step of his near and inevitable end, a thought 
which he compared to the " Mane, thecel, fares," of Balta- 



74 

zar, which snatches hira at every moment from dreams of 
iiappiness and transports him to the crael land of reality. 

He compared the fate of man in life to that of the Koman 
gladiators in those memorable combats known as sine remis- 
sione, in which, the vanquished received no mercy, but were 
■compelled to die irrevocably in the fight. 

He spoke at length of the instability of everything sur- 
rounding man ; everything is in a state of formation or 
decline, and if he studies himself he will find that every- 
thing in him also changes, everything is altered and trans- 
formed without ceasing. 

Everything, he went on, that has been created shares the 
same fate ; even the earth we inhabit, that grain of sand in 
the immense groiip of suns which, people the firmament is 
known to man to have been a vivid astrum, a real sun. 

He sees, to-day, that the bowels of the earth hardly con- 
tain the heat necessary to support the animal life thereon, and 
that its extremities are commencing to get cold, a fact which 
announces that a day will come when, from want of central 
heat or the thickness of the terrestrial covering, vegetation 
will languish and afterwards die. The woods will disappear, 
the atmosphere will be insufficient, and the earth will be 
converted into chalky land which will only serve to reflect 
the light of other suns ; in short, the earth will become 
converted into another majestic moon, it is true, but a corpse 
after all. 

He here cited a suitable thought from Alfred de Yigny, 
who says that he sees man disappearing sadly until the 
moment when he speaks and contemplates full of horror that 
the minutes and the hours, the days, months, years and cen- 
turies do nothing^ more than devour each other. He sees that 
on the agitated surface of that whirlpool which constitutes 
life, beauty and talent, power and honor, appear for a moment 
only and then disappear for ever. 

He explained that man is not satisfied to know that in the 
great laboratory of nature nothing is either created or lost, 
but tbat everything is simply transformed, as Lavoissier said. 



75 

It does Dot console him to know that in the bosom of death 
itself the hymns of life are to be heard, for the elements of 
destruction of the human frame are the germs of life, which 
other beings are clamoring for with which to spring into 
existence, grow and invigorate. 

He is not consoled, he is not satisfied, with life, for besides 
the matter, besides the clay which he returns to earth, man 
feels that he has within him somethino- that is not material, 
that is not tangible, which cannot follow the law of the trans- 
formation of matter, and that something is a giant soul, cap- 
able of embracing heaven, capable of covering the earth 
with its wino's. 

From this spirit, as apart from matter, comes that cry of 
life which escapes from the lips of man when he breathes his 
last and which is said to live beyond the tomb, to live in the 
hearts of those he loved and in the memory of those who 
outlive him. Here, then, is the supreme satisfaction of man- 
kind, his only consolation before the terrible problem of death. 

In confirmation of this truth, he cited the great thought of 
Cicero, who said: " Owing to a sentiment which I cannot 
explain, my soul in its descent to posterity cannot see in 
death anything but the beginning of life," while in another 
part he said, " If it were false that our souls are immortal, 
the greatest and best would never aspire to immortality." 

He said that the same thought inspired Socrates with those 
last words a few moments before drinking the hemlock, 
when he said to his disciples, " that he did not fear the 
destruction of his body, for he believed in the existence of 
an immaterial principle in his being, destined to achieve 
happier results from the practice of goodness and virtue." 

He demonstrated, moreover, that without the hope of im- 
mortality, life would have no object, for it would serve no. 
purpose to hve so short a time and suffer so many pains and 
deplore so many losses ; that without the hope of immor- 
tality death \vould be for man a cruel deception, for in the 
midst of the shadows that envelop him he would be face to 
face with the terrifying thought known as nothingness. 



76 

Finally, he said, that if we had not so many proofs of the 
existence in ourselves of an immortal soul we should be 
compelled to bless eternally him who had had the happiness 
of inventing it and of inculcating it on us, for this consoling 
creation is that which has converted the sight of man into 
hope and has performed the prodigy of preventing man from 
seeing in death either nothingness or destruction, but a glori- 
ous transformation, as Chateaubriand used to say, which, far 
from breaking the bonds of the heart and the sinews of 
intelligence, fortifies them, invigorates them and permits man 
to build between the visible world and the invisible a subtle 
ladder, an aerial bridge, which forms the communication 
between affection and sentiment, which enchants him with 
ecstasy and permits him lastly to proclaim in the critical 
moment of death, with Alfred de Musset (above all if he is 
a person of the worth and character of Pepper), that in dyinp^ 
he will not fall into oblivion, but that, on the contrary, the 
threshold of the new life looms up before him, the only 
happy and tranquil life, and the only enduring one, in which 
neither rancor nor envy exist, and which bestows upon the 
great benefactors of mankind, gratitude, justice, veneration 
and the love of posterity. 

POEM BY DR. PEON Y CONTRERAS. 

The proceedings terminated with a poem recited by Yuca- 
tan's physician and poet, Dr. Jose Peon y Contreras, which was 
much admired. 

THE ATTENDANCE. 

Gen. Gonzalez Cosio, Minister of the Interior, and family, 
occupied a box. Gen. Mena, Minister of Communications, 
was in the diplomatic box. 

U. S. Minister Clayton and Mrs. Clayton occupied the pro- 
scenium box on the right side of the platform. They were 
accompanied in the box by Dr. Tobias Nunez, Mr. Jose 
Romero, Mr. Fernando Liceaga and Mr. Fenton R. McCreery. 



.77 

Among the other persons present were IT. S. Consul General 
Andrew D. Barlow, Mr. and Mrs. Y. M. Braschi, Major R. B. 
Gorsuch, Mr. Walter S. Logan of New York, Dr. Pedro C 
Hinojosa, Francisco Hurtado, Dr. Augustin Chacon, Dr. 
Domingo Orvananos, Dr. Ignacio Capetillo, Jnan Martinez 
del Campo, Leopoldo Castro, Dr. Latapi, Mr. Philip F. A. 
Ryan and wife. Dr. Adelgaray, Dr. Abrego, Francisco S. 
James, David R. Contreras, Dr. Joaquin L. Yallejo, Dr. 
Ramon N. Prado, Dr. Perfecto Diaz, Mr. and Mrs. John R. 
Davis, Mr. and Mrs. Philip G. Roeder. Lie. Pablo Macedo and 
family, Mr. J. L. Starr Hunt, Mr. and Mrs. C. E. Cummings, 
W. H. Selover, L. 0. Harnecker, Mrs. Dr. Liceaga and 
daughters. Dr. Archibald Lawson, Dr. A. W. Parsons, Dr. 
Quevedo y Zubieta, Dr. Lorenzo Chavez, Dr. Gabriel Silva, 
Dr. Antonio Salinas y Carbo, Dr. Francisco de P. Leal, Dr. 
F. Yazquez Gomez, Dr. Carlos Govea, Dr. Garcia, Dr. E. 
Lamicq, Dr. Arturo Palmero, Lie. David Lazo, F. Manzano 
Ileredia, Dr. Yega Limon, Celedonio Carrera, N. Garcia 
Colin, Dr. Francisco Blazquez, Thom.as Alexis Nerney, 
Federico N'avarro, M. N. Sheldon, Dr. Toraas Noriega, Dr. 
Jose Ramos, Dr. Angel Gavin o. Dr. Emilio F. Montano, Dr. 
Jose M. Lugo, Dr. Ignacio Ocampo, Gregorio Aldasoro, Dr. 
Carlos Tejeda, Dr. Francisco Ortega, .Dr. Rafael S. Sevilla, 
Estanislao Yelasco, H. H. Hinkle, Dr. Yergara Lope, the 
Arrillaga family. Lie. Ricardo Guzman and ladies. Dr. Roque 
Macouzet, Dr. Jose Donaciano Morales, Lautaro Roca, Hon. 
Francisco Orla, Guatemalan charge d'affaires; Dr. T. D. 
Wheatley, Dr. Rafael Lopez, Manuel Garrido, Octaviano 
Liceaga, Dr. Jose Ramirez, Dr. Joaquin Huici, Jose W. de 
Landa v Escandon, E. Kroenig, Barnardo Urueta, etc. 

There were also a large number of medical students 

present. 

The President was attended by Lieutenant-Colonel Fer- 
nando Gonzalez, the acting chief of his staff, and Lieutenant 
Armando Santa Cruz, both in uniform. ", 



U if C. 



78 

Oeatorical and Musical Tribute Offered by Mexico 
TO THE Memory of the Late American Savant 
AND Philanthropist. 

The medical and scientific societies of Mexico and Mexi- 
can society at large last night gave a public expression 
of mourning over the untimely death of Dr. William Pep- 
per, of Philadelphia, whom they did not only recognize 
as a man who had made himself a citizen of the world 
by his scientific attainments and his great work for the 
elevation of humanity, but also as a warm friend and admirer 
of the progressive spirit of the Mexican people and the great 
future which lies before Mexican effort in the field of science 
and in the work of general education and improvement. 
The memorial was beautifully arranged and the plans were 
well executed. It took place in the hall of Congress, which 
had been artistically draped in mourning. American and 
Mexican flags entwined were the most prominent part of the 
decoration, being grouped on one side of the tribune, the 
back of which was occupied by a large panel bearing the 
simple inscription, " William Pepper," sarmoiinted by an 
allegory representing science, flanked on either side by similar 
panels telling of Pepper's connection with the Pan-American 
Medical Congress. The front of the tribune was banked up 
with tropical plants ; black crape was used to festoon the 
boxes and the whole room bore the aspect of dignified 
mourning. The attendance was very large in the upper tier 
of boxes. The rest of the house was comfortably filled with 
representative Mexicans and many Americans. Minister 
Clayton and wife occupied a box of honor near the stage ; 
among other members of the American colony present were 
noted Mr. and Mrs. J. E. Davis, Mr. and Mrs. Philip Eoeder, 
Major Gorsuch, Consul General Barlow, J. L. Starr Hunt, Dr. 
Parsons, H. W. Selover and many others. The exercises 
commenced with the punctual arrival of President Diaz, who 
took the principal seat on the stage between Minister Bar- 
randa and Governor Eebollar. A magnificent string orchestra 



79 

from the conservatory, after having finished the national 
hymn, played as is always customary upon the appearance of 
the chief magistrate, began the program on a signal from the 
President with a magnificent rendering of an " Andante Sos- 
tenuto " by Svendsen. Upon another signal, Hon. Matias 
Romero took the speaker's stand as the first orator of the 
evening. After reading a telegram from the President of 
the University of Permsylvania, expressing the thanks of 
that institution for the tribute paid to the memory of the 
former President of the University, Mr. Romero spoke as 
follows : 

" The desire to pay a well-merited, if feeble, tribute to the 
grand achievements of a man who has been notable on 
account of his beautiful personal qualities, for the good that 
he has done to his fellow-men during his journey through this 
life, and who, at the same time, was one of the most sincere 
friends of our country, causes me to emerge for a moment 
from the retirement into which the worst misfortune that can 
befall a man has forced me. 

" I had the good fortune to become personally acquainted 
with Dr. William Pepper in his native land, and enjoyed the 
opportunity of learning to appreciate his high qualities. 
Quite different from the other speakers, Avho this evening will 
sound his praises, I have not known him as a physician, 
however great his achievements in that branch, but simply 
as an altruist who had consecrated himself to doing every 
possible good to his fellow-men, devoting all his time to 
beneficial undertakings and supporting them out of his private 
means, without looking for any other recompense than the 
satisfaction of doing good. He employed the high position 
which he enjoyed in the United States to obtain the necessary 
aid for his grand beneficial undertakings, and he found it in 
that land which is so rich in philanthropists. 

" Dr. William Pepper was one of those brilliant stars who 
come to visit our planet clothed in the human form in order 
to do good to their fellows, and to become an example for 
their contemporaries and for future generations, in order to 
elevate them and improve the condition of humanity. 



80 

" I do not propose, nor would it be possible to do so, even 
shortly, to give a biography of Dr. Pepper, but must confine 
myself to referring in brief outlines to the way in which I 
became personally acquainted with some of the most beauti- 
ful qualities of the man. 

" In his desire to promote the commercial relations be- 
tween the United States and the other nations of the Ameri- 
can continent. Dr. Pepper conceived the idea of establishing 
in Philadelphia, his native city, commercial museums for the 
exhibition of the natural and industrial products of every 
one of the American republics in order that the manufac- 
turers of his own country, if they felt so inclined, might 
have an opportunity of examining the raw products to be 
had on the continent which might prove useful to them in 
their factories. This was a tremendous undertakinsj for a 
private citizen because it required large buildings, a body of 
scientifically trained attendants and a large number of other 
employes — in other words, the expenditure of a vast amount 
of money. But the energy of Dr. Pepper did not flinch 
before such difficulties ; he did overcome them all and suc- 
ceeded in establishing the commercial museums which were 
solemnly inaugurated by the President of the United States 
in Philadelphia on June 3, 1897. To secure the complete 
success of this enterprise it was the desire of Dr. Pepper to 
enlist the cooperation of the governments of the other Amer- 
ican nations who were interested in that success, and as I was 
the oldest of American diplomatic representatives in Wash- 
ington, he came to confer with me about his projects, and in 
that manner I had the good fortune to learn to know him 
personally. Frequently he came to Washington to confer 
with us, and at his invitation we were several times in Phila- 
delphia for the purpose of watching the progress of the work 
and also to assist at the formal opening of the museums, 
upon which occasion I made an address on behalf of Latiu- 
America, and in the name of the Diplomatic Advisory Board 
of the museums which he had organized. December 11, 
1897, all the Latin- American representatives had a reunion 



81 

in the Mexican legation in Washington, which was the last 
attended by Dr. Pepper. Before his death, Dr. Pepper had 
succeeded not only in raising funds sufficient for the perma- 
nent maintenance of the museums, but also for the construc- 
tion of an adequate building to cost several millions of dollars. 

" I was afforded still another occasion of learninsr of the 
good works of this remarkable man and of one which also 
bears close relation to our country. There was in Washing- 
ton during the winter and in California during the spring a 
distinguished lady, who was also in onr country some little 
time ago, leaving behind her shining memories of good works 
and benefits bestowed upon the deserving needy, and who 
takes a pleasure in employing the large wealth that is hers 
for the establishment of seats of learnina; and other sood 
works for the development of science and the general well- 
being of society. All who hear me will at once understand 
that I am referring to Mrs. Phebe A. Hearst. Dr. Pepper 
appealed to this philanthropic lady for financial aid for his 
noble enterprises, and cooperated with her in the sending of 
a scientific commission to Mexico, charged with studying the 
archceological and anthropological data to be obtained in 
some of our States for the benefit of science. I should 
never have known anything of this, although well acquainted 
with both promoters, if it had not been necessary for them 
to communicate their plans to me for the purpose of obtain- 
ing the consent of the Mexican government for the project. 
Otherwise they would not have spoken of it, as they were 
doing good for their own satisfaction and not prompted by 
vanity. It is my understanding that Mexico is not the only 
country to which commissions have been sent with a similar 
object. 

' ' For all this I consider this celebration in memory of a 
man whose life has been an honor to hnmanity a very com- 
mendable act on our part.' ' 

This brief speech was listened to with great attention. 
After its conclusion, a " Melodie religieuse " was beautifully 
given by a violin, violincello, piano and organ. Then spoke 



. 82 

Dr. Porfirio Parra in the name of the National Medical School, 
aDcl a magnificent effort it was. Dr. Parra is one of the 
leading philosophical thinkers of Mexico, and his address 
was a thoaghtful review of Dr. Pepper's work from his stand- 
point. He described him as the typical American, drawing a 
beantiful parallel between the Anglo-Saxon and the Latin- 
American character, and its products, doing full justice to 
both. To the savant's death he referred as the beginning of 
his immortality and praised him, happy for having reached 
such a high place in the hearts of his fellow-men all over the 
world, that death became in reality the beginning of a larger 
existence for him and his noble work. There was warm, 
feebly reproved, applause at the end of Dr. Parra' s remarks. 
Now came the musical treat of the program, the second 
movement of Beethoven's concert, op. 37, played b}^ Senorita 
Rafaela Parra with a wealth of feeling and wonderful expres- 
sion, in which she was more than once ably seconded by the 
string orchestra, one of the most intelligent-looking bodies 
of musicians the Avriter has seen or heard anywhere. The 
address of Dr. Arellano, a fine presentation of the social and 
humane qualities of Dr. Pepper, was like an upward move- 
ment in the sentiment of the evening. Wagner's "Album- 
blatt ' ' fitted well into the thoughts awakened by the speak- 
er's impressive remarks. After that music came the oration 
of the evening, given by Dr. Mendiozabal, who spoke without 
notes, and most of the time completely extemporized, fre- 
quently referring to the remarks of the speakers who had 
preceded him. He spoke feelingly of death, but considered 
it not a mere episode, but, like his predecessors, as the open- 
ing up of a new existence, without the certainty of which 
life would indeed not be worth the living. There was sup- 
pressed applause when the last words had fallen from his 
eloquent lips. The strain of his thoughts was taken up 
immediately after by the orchestra, which played that grand 
triumphal song, Haydn's " Largo," in a manner which 
changed the scene to the susceptible hearer into a grand 
cathedral filled with incense and pious submission to a higher 



83 

power. A poem, written and read by Dr. Contreras, closed 
the exercises. When the President arose, the audience and 
orchestra followed his example, and remained standing while 
the chief magistrate left the hall under the strains of the 
national hymn, which sounded on this occasion like a tribute 
to the memory of a great and good man. And so ended a 
function which must have made every countryman of Dr. 
Pepper feel prouder than ever of his nation, because it did 
produce a man worthy of being honored in such a noble way. 



